A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them. (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
Dictionaries have ‘out of thin air,’ but not ‘out of the air.’ Then do I have to read the phrase literally?
Best Answer
In this case, it is meant literally, because the motorcycle DID fall from the sky. But more often, "out of the air" is meant figuratively, in the sense of "from a random place."