kite

Etymology 1

The noun is from Middle English kyte, kīte, kete (“a kite endemic to Europe, especially the red kite (Milvus milvus)”), from Old English cȳta (“kite; bittern”), from Proto-West Germanic *kūtijō, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *kūts (“bird of prey”), from Proto-Indo-European *gū- (“to cry, screech”). The English word is cognate with Scots kyt, kyte (“kite; bird of prey”), Middle High German kiuzelīn, kützlīn (“owling”) (modern German Kauz (“owl”)). Possibly a doublet of coot. Sense 3 (“lightweight toy”) is from the fact that it hovers in the air like the bird. The verb is derived from the noun.

noun

1. A bird of prey of the family Accipitridae.
   1. Any bird of the subfamily Milvinae, with long wings and weak legs, feeding mostly on carrion and spending long periods soaring; specifically, the red kite (Milvus milvus) and the black kite (Milvus migrans).
      The milvus, or kite, is a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa. […] Its motion in the air distinguishes it from all other birds, being so smooth and even that it is scarcely perceptible. 1816, G[eorge] Gregory, [Jeremiah Joyce], “FALCO”, in A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. … In Three Volumes.[…], 1st American edition, volume II, Philadelphia, Pa.: Published by Isaac Peirce,[…], sold also by Coale and Maxwell,[…], and James F. Shores,[…]; Dennis Heartt, printer, →OCLC
   2. A bird of the genus Elanus, having thin pointed wings, that preys on rodents and hunts by hovering; also, any bird of related genera in the subfamily Elaninae.
      The ‘white-tailed’ kites in the genus Elanus (‘kite’) are small, gull-like, grey-and-white hawks with black forewing patches and varying amounts of black on the underwings. 2019, Stephen Debus, “Small Kites, Genus Elanus”, in Birds of Prey of Australia: A Field Guide, 3rd edition, Clayton South, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing, part II (Handbook), page 113
   3. Some species in the subfamily Perninae.
      The swallow-tailed kite of the New World (Elanoides forficatus) is a striking black and white bird of the subfamily Perninae. It is about 60 cm (24 inches) long, including its long forked tail. It is most common in tropical eastern South America but also occurs from Central America to the United States. 2011, “Selected Falconiforms”, in John P. Rafferty, editor, Meat Eaters: Raptors, Sharks, and Crocodiles (Britannica Guide to Predators and Prey), New York, N.Y.: Britannica Educational Publishing in association with Rosen Educational Services, page 57
2. (figurative) A rapacious person.
3. A lightweight toy or other device, traditionally flat and shaped like a triangle with a segment of a circle attached to its base or like a quadrilateral (see sense 9), carried on the wind and tethered and controlled from the ground by one or more lines.
   On windy spring days, we would fly kites.
   Housing a Dirigible […] When the ship is kept head on to the wind, it is easy enough to guide her, but when a wind blows across the mouth of the shed, every man's heart is in its throat. The ship offers so much more surface sidewise than endwise that she becomes an enormous kite. 1921 March, “Keeping Up with the March of Science: Facts for the Man who Wants to Know”, in Waldemar Kaempffert, editor, The Popular Science Monthly, volume 98, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Modern Publishing Company,[…], →OCLC, page 71, column 1
4. A tethered object which deflects its position in a medium by obtaining lift and drag in reaction with its relative motion in the medium.
   The purpose of the water kite is to float beneath or beside the ship at a depth sufficient to insure safety. 12 September 1906, “Water Kites”, in Fairbanks Evening News, Fairbanks, Ak.: Tanana Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 2
5. (astrology) A planetary configuration wherein one planet of a grand trine is in opposition to an additional fourth planet.
   Frequently a kite formation is created by one of the planets in the trine by its opposition to another planet, which allows expulsion and redirection of the pent-up energy associated with a closed circuit. 1992, Erin Sullivan, Retrograde Planets: Traversing the Inner Landscape (Contemporary Astrology), London: Arkana Publishing, pages 144–145
6. (banking, slang) A blank cheque; a fraudulent cheque, such as one issued even though there are insufficient funds to honour it, or one that has been altered without authorization.
   But she said, "if this was a kite, he didn't realize that you don't have the float time of the old days," which made check-kiting easier. 21 May 1991, Alex Barnum, “Suspect named in kiting case”, in San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, Calif.: Mercury Herald Co., →OCLC, page 8E
7. (finance, slang) An accommodation bill (“a bill of exchange endorsed by a reputable third party acting as a guarantor, as a favour and without compensation”).
   The advantages which are alleged to belong to the district system [of banking] are the following:— […] as each bank will have an agent in London, the bills they draw will thus have two parties as securities, and the public will have a pledge that there is no excessive issue in the form of kites or accommodation bills. 1871, James W. Gilbart, “Section XI. The Administration of Joint-stock Banks, with an Inquiry into the Causes of Their Failures.”, in The Principles and Practice of Banking, new edition, London: Bell & Daldy,[…], →OCLC, part I (Of Practical Banking), pages 324–325
8. (cycling, slang) A rider who is good at climbs but less good at descents.
9. (geometry) A polygon resembling the shape of a traditional toy kite (sense 3): a quadrilateral having two pairs of edges of equal length, the edges of each pair touching each other at one end.
   Four-sided figures without parallel sides include trapezoids and kites.
   A kite is a quadrilateral with exactly two pairs of adjacent congruent sides. Note that a parallelogram has opposite congruent sides, whereas the congruent sides of kites are adjacent. Therefore, a kite is also a parallelogram only when both pairs of adjacent congruent sides of the kite are congruent to each other, making the kite a rhombus. 2011, W. Michael Kelley, “Quadrilaterals”, in The Humongous Book of Geometry Problems: Translated for People Who Don’t Speak Math!!, New York, N.Y.: Alpha Books, page 216
10. (military aviation, slang) An aeroplane or aircraft.
    And did you know the Chiefie said that one of our kites went in the drink last night? 1944, Vocational Trends, volume 7
    This time, the engine roared and the kite rocked against the brakes then sluggishly rolled down the strip. 2004, Harry Foxley, Marking Time: A Soldier’s Story, Victoria, B.C., Crewe, East Cheshire: Trafford Publishing, page 133
11. (sailing, dated) In a square-rigged ship: originally a sail positioned above a topsail; later a lightweight sail set above the topgallants, such as a studding sail or a jib topsail.
    This is the first attested use of the word in this sense.
12. (sailing, slang) A spinnaker (“supplementary sail to a mainsail”).
    The key to a good gybe is to bring the spinnaker round to the old weather side before you begin, and then to steer to keep some wind in the kite. 2014, Tim Davison, “Symmetric Spinnakers”, in Skipper’s Cockpit Racing Guide: For Dinghies, Keelboats and Yachts, London: Adlard Coles Nautical, page 24
13. (Britain, dialectal) The brill (Scophthalmus rhombus), a type of flatfish.
    Brill (Scophthalmus rhombus) Also known as kite or pearl. Brill reaches a maximum length of 75cm (29½in). It lives in the Eastern Atlantic, from Iceland to Morocco, throughout the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. 2010, “Fish and Seafood”, in Helena Caldon, Fiona Corbridge, Mary Scott, Belinda Wilkinson, editors, The Cook’s Book of Ingredients, London: Dorling Kindersley, page 69
14. (US, prison slang) A (usually concealed) letter or oral message, especially one passed illegally into, within, or out of a prison.
    Officers must maintain control by making sure their inmate count is correct, by checking inmates' passes as they walk the hall […] This helps prevent the occasional juggling of goods, gang communication, such as kites (a written request from one inmate to another), and inmate assaults, such as face cuts or stabbings. 2011, Gary L. Heyward, Corruption Officer: From Jail Guard to Perpetrator inside Rikers Island, New York, N.Y.: Atria Paperback, pages 69–70

verb

1. (transitive) To cause (something) to move upwards rapidly like a toy kite; also (chiefly US, figurative) to cause (something, such as costs) to increase rapidly.
   Rising interest rates have kited the cost of housing.
   […] when he saw the fuse of the firecracker was lighted, he turned the torch on the powder under the barrel of dried apples, and in a second everything went kiting; the barrel of dried apples with the cat in it went up to the ceiling, the stove was blown over the counter, the cheese box and the old groceryman went with a crash to the back end of the store, the front windows blew out on the sidewalk, the old man rushed out the back door with his whiskers singed and yelled "Fire!" 1907, Geo[rge] W[ilbur] Peck, chapter XVII, in Peck’s Bad Boy with the Cowboys, Chicago, Ill.: Stanton and Van Vliet Co., →OCLC, pages 292–293
   Lombard swung at the sweet pea he had dropped, caught it neatly with the toe of his shoe, and kited it upward with grim zest, as though doing that made him feel a lot better. 1942, William Irish [pseudonym; Cornell Woolrich], Phantom Lady (Story Press Book), Philadelphia, Pa., New York, N.Y.: J. B. Lippincott Co., →OCLC, page 189
   Today, the Bangs auction house would have been rubbing its hands with unconcealed glee and kiting the price of the manuscript into the stratosphere. In 1877, no bidding took place. Bangs merely announced that the letter had been sold for $13. 2009, Thomas Fleming, “George Washington: The Agonies of Honor”, in The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers, New York, N.Y.: Smithsonian Books; 1st Harper paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper; Smithsonian Books, 2010, page 5
2. (transitive, slang) To tamper with a document or record by increasing the quantity of something beyond its proper amount so that the difference may be unlawfully retained; in particular, to alter a medical prescription for this purpose by increasing the number of pills or other items.
   A pharmacist "kited" and "shorted" a significant percentage of prescriptions. "Kiting" refers to the pharmacist's forging upward the number of pills originally prescribed by the physician, charging Medicaid for the increased amount but providing the patient with the originally prescribed quantity. 2 June 1970, Lowell E. Bellin, “Statement of Dr. Lowell E. Bellin, First Deputy Commissioner, New York City Department of Health”, in Medicare and Medicaid: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Medicare-Medicaid of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Ninety-first Congress, Second Session: Part 2 of 2 Parts:[…], Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 535
   Pharmacists have kited Medicaid prescriptions by raising the number of pills called for on a prescription blank from, say, 100 to 200, and billing Medicaid for the larger amount. 1975, Spencer Klaw, The Great American Medicine Show: The Unhealthy State of U.S. Medical Care, and What can be Done about It, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, page 191
   Sir, I have a lead that the sergeants in charge at the down town airmen's club have been kiting the winnings on the slot machines. […] Some of them will give the kid his $10.00 winnings, have him sign for it in the ledger. After the kid walks away he/they add a zero to make it look like the kid won a $100 instead of the ten. Then they pocket the $90.00. 9 July 2009, Martin Sandy Doria, “Gao Shang Air Station”, in The Fungido Journals, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, page 84
3. (transitive, video games) To keep ahead of (an enemy) in order to attack repeatedly from a distance, without exposing oneself to danger.
   If you're pulling or kiting a creature and it aggros an innocent passer-by, it's your fault and you should apologize. 2001, Juanita Jones, Everquest Player’s Guide: Prima’s Official Strategy Guide, Roseville, Calif.: Prima Games, page 70
4. (transitive, intransitive) To (cause to) glide in the manner of a kite (“bird”).
   The wind kited us toward shore.
   It was mere happenstance that the Weston meteor kited across the sky on December 14, 1807, the same day President [Thomas] Jefferson's Non-Importation Act, which restricted trade with Great Britain and France during the Napoleonic Wars, went into effect. 2010, Cathryn J. Prince, “The Misquote Heard Round the World”, in A Professor, A President, and A Meteor: The Birth of American Science, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, page 130
   In the distance creatures on leathery wings kited across the sky, lofted by thermal winds. 2019, Amy J. Murphy, chapter 13, in Pat Dobie, editor, Allies and Enemies: Legacy (Allies and Enemies; book 4), [s.l.]: Amy J. Murphy
5. (transitive, intransitive, rare) To manipulate like a toy kite; also, usually preceded by an inflection of go: to fly a toy kite.
   Want to go kite with me this weekend?
   Finally, if you have no one to fly a kite with, you can kite alone. 1981 March, “Fun on a Kite String”, in Austin H. Kiplinger, editor, Changing Times: The Kiplinger Magazine, volume 35, number 3, Editors Park, Md.: The Kiplinger Washington Editors, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 34
   Only during the brief time of experimentation with flight that preceded the invention of the airplane, when kites fired the western imagination with visions of human flight, did kiting become significant. 1997, Norman Schmidt, “Kites are Universal”, in The Great Kite Book (A Sterling/Tamos Book), Winnipeg, Manitoba: TAMOS Books; republished as Best Ever Paper Kites, New York, N.Y.: Sterling Publishing Company; Winnipeg, Manitoba: TAMOS Books, 2003, page 3
   Then there was the motorized paraglider. I was actually lucky on this one—I had a full four days to practice on it. However, I was also dealing with a 10-pound (4.5 kg) motor on my back and a huge parachute that I had to learn to kite behind me. 2005, Danielle Burgio, with Jennifer Worick, “Coordination”, in The Stuntwoman’s Workout: Get Your Body Ready for Anything, Philadelphia, Pa.: Quirk Books, page 144, column 2
6. (transitive, intransitive, banking, slang) To write or present (a cheque) on an account with insufficient funds, either to defraud or expecting that funds will become available by the time the cheque clears.
   He was convicted of kiting checks and sentenced to two years in prison.
   The fame and money brought in by Only in America meant no more name changes, no need to kite checks, and no sneaking past the landlord. 2015, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “Scandal and Resurrection”, in Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, page 163
7. (transitive, intransitive, US, slang, by extension) To steal.
   Andy also kept a box of that [steel wool] in his cell, although he didn't get it from me—I imagine he kited it from the prison laundry. 27 August 1982, Stephen King, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, in Different Seasons, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press; republished in Stephen King Goes to the Movies, 1st Pocket Books paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, February 2009, page 470
   Little bastards were always trying to kite stuff, particularly the candy and the girly magazines. 2001, Stephen King, Dreamcatcher: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books; 1st Gallery Books trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Gallery Books, January 2018, page 611
8. (intransitive) To travel by kite, as when kitesurfing.
   We spent the afternoon kiting around the bay.
   If we kited again, it would be very dangerous with the steep slope and the heavy weight crashing on behind us and, in any event, Pat and Dave's kites were ridiculously tangled. 2010, Alastair Vere Nicoll, “An End and a Beginning”, in Riding the Ice Wind: By Kite and Sledge across Antarctica, London, New York, N.Y.: I.B. Tauris
   A rare north wind and conditions of good visibility allowed me to try my luck at kiting again. Without stopping for chocolate and taking quick gulps of energy orange from my Thermos, I kited 117 miles in one day. 2008, Ranulph Fiennes, “Solo South”, in Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, London: Hodder Paperbacks
9. (intransitive, figurative) To move rapidly; to rush.
   They commenced whipping their horses at the base, and, as one of the prisoners expressed it, "they went kiting up the hill, and for nearly a mile after the summit had been gained." 1857, Sara T[appan] L[awrence] Robinson, “Arrest of G. Jenkins and G. W. Brown”, in Kansas; Its Interior and Exterior Life.[…], 7th edition, Boston, Mass.: Crosby, Nichols and Company; Cincinnati, Oh.: George S. Blanchard; London: Sampson Low, Son & Co., →OCLC, page 263
   Q. The supervisor of a particular district would go around in his carriage. […] They went kiting around for a couple of weeks? A. Yes, sir; for four weeks prior to election. Q. Were the carriages necessary? A. I didn't see any necessity for them. 13 June 1876, George S. Thompson (witness), “Testimony Taken by the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice in Reference to the Use of the Secret Service Fund”, in Index to Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives for the First Session of the Forty-fourth Congress, 1875–’76, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 297
   […] the big boy stuck his foot out so she fell. Nursie saw and started for her, but she scrambled up and went kiting for the bench, and climbed on it, […] 1915, Gene Stratton-Porter, “Little Brother”, in Michael O’Halloran, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 109
10. (intransitive, engineering, nautical) To deflect sideways in the water.
    This column action causes the tow line to kite either to the port or the starboard side, […] 17 December 1973, Clarence K. Chatten, Saul A. Eller, Reece Folb, Arthur P. Brisbane, Weather Resistant Segmented Fairing for a Tow Cable, US Patent 3,899,991 (PDF version), column 1
11. (intransitive, US, prison slang) To pass a (usually concealed) letter or oral message, especially illegally into, within, or out of a prison.
    Prison Hall in Central Hospital was claimed by some patients to be "organized" in the more extensive manner of prisons for the sane. Here, it was claimed, an attendant could be bribed to "kite" a letter or bring in contraband, […] 1961, Erving Goffman, “The Underlife of a Public Institution: A Study of Ways of Making Out in a Mental Hospital”, in Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Anchor; A277), Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, →OCLC; republished New Brunswick, N.J., London: Aldine Transaction, 2007 (2009 printing), footnote 166, page 301
    I have been working like a dam mule this morning and just found time to kite you. 1966, Rose Giallombardo, Society of Women: A Study of a Women’s Prison, New York, N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, →OCLC, page 236

Etymology 2

Uncertain; possibly: * from Middle English kit, kitte (“wooden bucket or tub; (figuratively) belly”), possibly from Middle Dutch kitte (“wooden vessel of hooped staves”) (modern Dutch kit (“metal can used mainly for coal”)), further etymology unknown; or * from Middle English *kid (attested only in compounds such as kide-nẹ̄re (“kidney; region of the kidneys, loins”)), possibly from Old English *cyde, *cydde (“belly”), cwiþ (“belly; womb”), from Proto-Germanic *kweþuz (“belly, stomach”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷet-, *gut- (“rounding, swelling; entrails, stomach”), from *gʷu-, *gū- (“to bend, bow, curve, distend, vault”). The English word is cognate with Icelandic kviði (“womb”), kviður (“stomach”), kýta (“stomach of a fish; roe”), Middle Low German kūt (“entrails”), West Flemish kijte, kiete (“fleshy part of the body”).

noun

1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) The stomach; the belly.
   Don't live like vegetarians On food they give to parrots, Blow out your kite, from morn 'til night, On boiled beef and carrots. 1909, Charles Collins, Fred Murray (lyrics and music), “Boiled Beef and Carrots”, performed by Harry Champion; republished in John Mullen, “The Songs and Their Content”, in The Show Must Go On!: Popular Song in Britain during the First World War, Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2015, page 102

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Coptic ⲕⲓⲧⲉ (kite), from Demotic qt, from Egyptian qdt.

noun

1. (Egyptology) A measure of weight equivalent to ¹⁄₁₀ deben (about 0.32 ounces or 9.1 grams).
   […] in the great Harris papyrus, […] precise quantities are recorded by weight in terms of the deben (about 2½ oz.) and the qite (¼ oz.) of gold, silver, copper and precious stones, without any reference to their value. […] Five pots of honey were bought for five qite of silver and an ox for five qite of gold. 1981, Pierre Montet, “The Arts and the Professions”, in A[ymer] R[obert] Maxwell-Hyslop, Margaret S[tefana] Drower, transl., Everyday Life in Egypt in the Days of Ramesses the Great, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, page 167
   [I]t was found necessary to employ media of exchange, and emmer wheat and silver were both used for this purpose. The latter was particularly favoured, but it was normally treated by weight, being measured in kite (9.53 g) and deben (10 kite) in purely Egyptian contexts, though foreigners such as the Jewish mercenaries at Elephantine could use their own metrological systems. 1983, Allen B. Lloyd, “The Late Period, 664–323 BC”, in B[ruce] G[raham] Trigger, B[arry] J[ohn] Kemp, D[avid Bourke] O’Connor, A. B. Lloyd, Ancient Egypt: A Social History (Cambridge History of Africa), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, published 2001, page 328
   The scribe of the temple Sedy set out with the pure priest and goldsmith Tuty for the frames; they removed one deben and three and a half qite of gold, which they took for the chief of the gang Pameniu. 2003, Pascal Vernus, “The Plunder of Western Thebes”, in David Lorton, transl., Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt: Translated from the French, Ithaca, N.Y., London: Cornell University Press, page 25
   In the Saite and Persian Periods, Abnormal Hieratic and Demotic texts usually measure value as weights of silver. […] The weights of silver are almost always either the deben of 91 grams, or the kite of 9.1 grams. In the Persian Period, Demotic texts sometimes also refer to staters equated to two kite, or five to the deben. 2016, Brian Muhs, “The Saite and Persian Periods (664–332 BCE)”, in The Ancient Egyptian Economy: 3000–30 BC, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pages 189–190
   The shekel was an Israelite unit of weight that appears to have weighed about 10g, and so it is the rough equivalent of the Egyptian kite, which also weighed about 10g. 2017 May, Ralph Ellis, “King David”, in Solomon, Pharaoh of Egypt, 4th edition, Cheshire: Edfu Books, page 57