Meaning & use
the flying squad
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Meanings
nounproperBritish
A British police unit whose officers travel quickly to deal with robberies, burglaries, and other serious crimes.
Grammar: Used with 'the' and treated as a singular unit: The flying squad was called in.
Patterns
- the flying squad was called in
- officers from the flying squad
- join the flying squad
The flying squad arrived within minutes of the alarm at the jewelry store.
Detectives from the flying squad were sent to investigate the series of bank robberies.
After the raid, the flying squad sealed off the street and searched the area.
nouncountablefigurative
Any small team that is organized to travel quickly to where it is needed.
Grammar: Used more generally for teams in business or sport: a flying squad of inspectors.
Patterns
- a flying squad of workers
- send in a flying squad
- a flying squad was set up
The company set up a flying squad of technicians to fix faults in remote offices.
A flying squad of nurses travels between rural clinics each week.
The coach keeps a flying squad of young players ready to join the first team.
Common combinations
- call in the flying squad
- When the robbery turned violent, the local police called in the flying squad.
- a member of the flying squad
- She spent five years as a member of the flying squad before moving to a desk job.
- the flying squad arrived
- The flying squad arrived just as the thieves were loading the van.
- the flying squad was set up
- The flying squad was set up in the 1920s to tackle armed robbery in the city.
Synonyms and how they differ
- specialist unit
- A broader term for any team with particular skills; it does not suggest speed or travel, which 'the flying squad' does.
- rapid response team
- Similar in meaning but used in many fields, not only policing, and it is not a fixed British police name.
Word family
- fly verb
- to move through the air or travel very quickly
- flying adjective
- moving quickly or able to move through the air
Commonly confused: the flying squad or the drug squad?
the flying squad vs the drug squad
This is a different police unit that deals with illegal drugs, not robbery and burglary.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'the flying squad' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'The flying squad' is a British police unit that responds to serious crime, so sentence A fits. B confuses it with an ordinary team doing everyday tasks, C treats it as a group of birds, and D wrongly connects it with learning to fly.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “the flying squad”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.