Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1796, slang, said by Grose to be an old term of reproach to a woman signifying that she was a witch; used from 1823 in reference to anyone who departs hastily from a recent activity, especially while owing money. The different senses involve the two verbs fly.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A creature which flies at night; a nocturnal flier or traveler. 2 One who departs or flees at night in order to avoid creditors, law enforcement etc. (often used attributively). 3 (context idiomatic derogatory English) A person or business that appears and disappears rapidly, or gives an impression of transience. 4 (context idiomatic derogatory English) A traveling businessman or tradesman.
WordNet
adj. of businesses and businessmen; "a fly-by-night operation" [syn: shady]
of an impermanent nature; "the symphony is no fly-by-night venture"
n. a debtor who flees to avoid paying
Wikipedia
Fly-by-Night is a children's novel by K. M. Peyton originally published by Oxford University Press in October 1968.
It is about an 11-year-old girl, Ruth Hollis, who buys a pony called Fly for £40 from a dealer. The low price reflects his lack of training. She expands his name to Fly-by-Night and attempts to train him herself without much success. She then joins a pony club to learn more about horses. A rivalry develops between Ruth and another girl, Pearl, who owns a pedigree Arabian mare named Milky Way. Ruth gets help from Peter, a runaway boy with lots of experience with horses. Ruth and Fly-by-Night compete in the hunter trials and come in sixth.
Fidra Books is currently publishing Fly-By-Night, with the sequel, The Team, expected in the future.
Fly-by-Night is a 1942 American thriller/screwball comedy film directed by Robert Siodmak, starring Richard Carlson and Nancy Kelly. It was Siodmak's first American film.
Usage examples of "fly-by-night".
What had started out as a fly-by-night, grassroots campaign was suddenly not so funny and could no longer be dismissed.
Many homeowners have lost all their insurance money to fly-by-night vagabonds.
The tusks vanished, to be replaced by the image of a thin, wiry Fly-by-Night.
Poor Borogove, all that way and her bottom smashed out in Fly-By-Night, a very strange place.
Now she works in a drop-in business shop, stacking shelves for virtual fly-by-nights that come and go like tourists in the Festival season—but humans aren’t in demand for shelf stacking either, these days.
All you got now is losers or fly-by-nights gittin’ in their time for the surgical boards and fixin’ to leave the first time they got a grand in the bank.
If, among them, there are some fly-by-nights concealing a lack of serious capital--- des fonds sérieux ---behind a good address, it would only be fair to admit that such men of paper exist also behind the even solider frontages of Lombard and Wall Streets.
If, among them, there are some fly-by-nights concealing a lack of serious capital– des fonds sérieux –behind a good address, it would only be fair to admit that such men of paper exist also behind the even solider frontages of Lombard and Wall Streets.
I'd had 'em before, at home, fly-by-night company sharps hoping to enlist a well-known public man (if you'll forgive me) in some swindle or other, and prepared to grease the palm according.
There were numerous plaques on the walls, each written in an alien script, and a few non-representational pieces of art, mostly in blues and violets, which made her wonder if the Fly-by-Nights could see as far into the infra-red as humans could.
Shoeflies march up, bowflies shoot arrows, sawflies, hammerflies, screwdriverflies work furiously on fly-by-night construction schemes.
If you won my periscope in some shoddy fly-by-night Hollywood strip poker, I would sink three times in my waterbed, never to be seen again.
Quick tenancies for fly-by-night businesses had left blocked-up windows and boarded doors.
First, i undercuts the value of reputation by placing the reputabl company on the same basis as the unknown, the newcomer or the fly-by-nighter.