flail
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
Old French flael, from Latin flagellum (“whip”), diminutive of flagrum (“whip, scourge”).
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Noun
flail (plural flails)
- A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.
- A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain.
[edit] Quotations
- 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;
- When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
- 1816 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
- Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail
- Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
- 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!
- On him alone the curse of Cain
- 1879 — Henry George, Progress and Poverty, ch V
- 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...
[edit] Translations
tool
weapon
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[edit] Verb
flail (third-person singular simple present flails, present participle flailing, simple past and past participle flailed)
- To beat using a flail or similar implement.
- To wave or swing vigorously
- 2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, BBC Sport:
- 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.
- 2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, BBC Sport:
- To thresh.
[edit] Synonyms
- (to wave, to swing): thrash
[edit] Quotations
- 1937 — H. P. Lovecraft, The Evil Clergyman
- He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.
[edit] Translations
to wave or swing vigorously
to thresh
[edit] See also
Flail on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Flail in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
