Dictionary definition of “frequent flier”

frequent flier

n. a repeat offender; a recidivist; (generally) a person who regularly or habitually uses or takes advantage of a service. Subjects: English, Medical, Police, Colloquial

Etymological Note: A generalization of frequent flier, defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as a person who regularly travels by air on commercial flights, esp. one who is enrolled in a promotional program for such travelers.

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Citations: 1989 John M. Glionna Los Angeles Times (Aug. 3) “Some Pay Price, but for Others Oceanside Span Takes Bigger Toll” p. 1: In the meantime, toll-taker Arnold Smith watches the regular bridge users—the “frequent fliers”—pass by each day. 1991 Ron Shaffer Washington Post (July 18) “A Lesson in Seeing the Light” p. J01: What the state has been doing is having the attendants at tollbooths try to take down license numbers of the cheaters (the state calls them frequent fliers). When a license appears three times, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles sends the registered owner a letter asking that the three tolls be paid. 1995 Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada) (Mar. 6) “Police can’t stop ‘frequent flyers’ selling refugee papers for big bucks” p. A5: The claimants enter Canada as refugees and leave Canada afterwards to return again as refugees using phoney names, immigration officials said. The multiple claimants have been dubbed “frequent flyers” by officials. 1998 Mike Burke Chicago Daily Herald (Illinois) (May 24) “DuPage towns seeing increase in runaways” p. 6: Roselle Police Chief Richard Eddington said he often sees familiar names—the names of frequent fliers—when he looks over a list of phone calls made to the police department over the weekend. A frequent flier is a troubled teen who repeatedly runs away from home. 2001 Steve Dunleavy New York Post (May 10) “A Frequent Flier Through Justice’s Revolving Door” p. 4: (title) 2004 Byron Rohrig Evansville Courier (Illinois) (Feb. 9) “Intoxicated ‘Frequent Flyer’ Makes Unwise Use Of Miles” p. A7: He blows a 0.21 percent blood-alcohol reading, gets tanked for felony after computer shows he’s DUI frequent-flyer—arrests in 2002 and 2003 for driving while plowed. 2004 Paul Weston Sunday Mail (Australia) (Mar. 21) “Sad ‘frequent flyers’ in a life of abuse” p. 34: They call them “frequent flyers”—the thousands of battered and bruised women crowding Queensland’s accident and emergency wards and filling our courts. After being stitched up, their condition is officially listed as “blunt trauma, face.” They are released and more often than not return home for a repeat beating. 2005 Mike Saewitz Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida) (Apr. 17) “Locked up in a cycle” p. A1: Bernier is near the top of a list of about 475 “frequent fliers,” the term a consultant used to describe people like him, many of whom pose little threat to the community yet cycle in and out of jail with no apparent hope of changing their ways. 2005 [grovefireman] Fo sho-nuff good readin’ (Wisconsin) (Sept. 11) “No surprise here…”: I didn’t run a 911 call till around 1600 I think and boy was that guy a winner…The engine co. requests for the diabetic, we get there this guys puking and the engine boss is giving me the “he’s a frequent flyer’ wink, he has an ID tag form Sinai from yesterday when he was last there. The guy is an ass, hes 2 blocks from Sinai hospital but wants to go to Froedtert which is another 8 miles out of the way cause they give him bus fare. 2006 [Bunkergurl] White Scrubs (Minneapolis, Minnesota) (Apr. 13) “Running With The Devil”: Contestant #2 should have been named “Mr. Drug Seeker”—amazing how an hour after 2 Percocet’s, somebody’s pain, which had been at an “8,” was suddenly up to a “8.5.” Whatever. I assessed him, couldn’t find anything that would indicate his pain going up. Told my assinged nurse, who informed me “he’s a frequent flyer—you know what he’s after.” 2006 Los Angeles Times (May 7) “One case at a time”: Homeless for about five years, ricocheting from hospital to jail to sidewalk, he is what is known as a “frequent flier"—among the chronically homeless who cost the city the most in police, fire and hospital services.

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