Definite article with noun referring to something not satisfying definition

Consider the following phrase:

The airplane is missing its wings

Given that wings are part of the definition of an airplane, why is it correct to use “the airplane” to refer to an airplane without wings?

Solution 1:

I'm not sure whether this is a profound (or maybe willfully obtuse?) question about semiotics and the nature of being, or a very simple but confused question about articles. You seem to assume a relationship between "definite article" and "definition." If your question is "At what point does an airplane become not-an-airplane," that's a philosophical question, not on-topic here. (And surely wings are only a part of the definition, and by any reasonable construction it is still "an airplane." Amputees might object to any sophistry that considers them non-human.)

But that's irrelevant, since the signifier "the airplane" can refer backwards to an earlier identification. Barring an in media res situation, the definite article usually refers to an entity already under discussion. Consider this example:

The witch picked up a frog and dripped a drop of potion on it. There was a puff of smoke, and when it cleared, the frog had become a bird.

First of all, notice that the first introduction of the frog uses the indefinite article. But in the second sentence, even though the frog was entirely no longer a frog, we can meaningfully refer to it as "the frog" as a shorthand for "the entity recently identified as a frog and under immediate discussion."