Fly by the seat of your pants means acting on instinct, with no plan or preparation: When the projector broke, I flew by the seat of my pants. The image comes from early aviation: with no instruments, pilots felt the plane tilt through the seat they sat on. People say it with pride in their quick thinking or with a bit of self-mockery.
When would you say fly by the seat of your pants?
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fly by the seat of my / your / his / her / our / their pants
- With no script and no rehearsal, I was flying by the seat of my pants.
- They launched the tiny magazine by the seat of their pants.
- During the first workshop, we flew by the seat of our pants and adjusted each activity as we went.
What changed
First versionWe were flying by the seat of our pant during the first lesson.
RevisionWe were flying by the seat of our pants during the first lesson.
Pants looks like an ordinary plural, so one pair might seem to be one pant. But pants, like trousers and jeans, only exists in the plural. Put the s back, and the expression is whole.
Play it by ear means deciding as you go, without planning ahead: Let's play it by ear tomorrow. That's relaxed flexibility. Fly by the seat of your pants is improvising when there's nothing to lean on and you have to figure it out on the spot.
Your turn
Complete the fixed expression about improvising without a clear plan: With no plan at all, we were flying ___ the seat of our pants.
Show the answer
by — The idiom is built with by: by the seat of your pants, guided by the feel of the seat. On the seat would just mean sitting on it.
Describe a time a plan fell apart and you had to improvise. Use fly by the seat of your pants.
When the projector stopped working, I flew by the seat of my pants and turned the talk into a discussion.
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