flail
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English flayle, from earlier fleil, fleyl, fleȝȝl, from Old English fligel, *flegel (“flail”), from Proto-West Germanic *flagil, of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots flail (“a thresher's flail”), West Frisian fleil, flaaiel (“flail”), Dutch vlegel (“flail”), German Flegel (“flail”). Possibly a native Germanic word from Proto-Germanic *flagilaz (“whip”), from Proto-Germanic *flag-, *flah- (“to whip, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂k- (“to beat, hit, strike; weep”); compare Old Norse flaga (“sudden attack, bout”), Lithuanian plàkti (“to whip, lash, flog”), Ancient Greek πληγνύναι (plēgnúnai, “strike, hit, encounter”), Latin plangō (“lament”, i.e. “beat one's breast”) + Proto-Germanic *-ilaz (instrumental suffix). If so, related also to English flag, flack, flacker.
Alternatively, Proto-West Germanic *flagil may be an early borrowing of Latin flagellum (“winnowing tool, thresher”), diminutive of flagrum (“scourge, whip”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlag-, *bʰlaǵ- (“to beat”); compare Old Norse blekkja (“to beat, mistreat”). Compare also Old French flael (“flail”), Walloon flayea (“flail”) (locally pronounced "flai"), Italian flagello (“scourge, whip, plague”).
Pronunciation edit
- IPA(key): /fleɪl/
- (dialectal, archaic) IPA(key): /fɹeɪl/ (see frail)[1]
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪl
Noun edit
flail (plural flails)
- A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle (handstock) with a shorter stick (swipple or swingle) attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.
- 1631, John Milton, L'Allegro:
- When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
- 1816, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan:
- Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail
- 1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp:
- On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth!
- 1879, Henry George, chapter V, in Progress and Poverty:
- If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher...
- A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain.
- Coordinate term: nunchaku
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
tool
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weapon
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb edit
flail (third-person singular simple present flails, present participle flailing, simple past and past participle flailed)
- (transitive) To beat using a flail or similar implement.
- (transitive) To wave or swing vigorously
- Synonym: thrash
- 2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, in BBC Sport[1]:
- Tangling with Ziv, Cameron caught him with a flailing elbow, causing the Israeli defender to go down a little easily. However, the referee was in no doubt, much to the displeasure of the home fans.
- 1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Evil Clergyman:
- He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.
- (transitive) To thresh.
- (intransitive) To move like a flail.
- He was flailing wildly, but didn't land a blow.
- 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 46:
- Undismayed he continued to flail with the broken half of it, denting many a helmet[.]
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
to wave or swing vigorously
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to thresh
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References edit
- ^ Hall, Joseph Sargent (1942 March 2) “3. The Consonants”, in The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 4), New York: King's Crown Press, , →ISBN, § 5, page 97.
Further reading edit
flail on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 
Flail in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
