flail

English

Etymology

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

• IPA^(key): /fleɪl/
• (dialectal, archaic) IPA^(key): /fɹeɪl/ (see frail)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

Noun

flail (plural flails)

1. 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.

   Synonyms: frail (obsolete), thrashel, threshel

   • 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...

2. 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

Translations

Verb

flail (third-person singular simple present flails, present participle flailing, simple past and past participle flailed)

1. (transitive) To beat using a flail or similar implement.
2. (transitive) To wave or swing vigorously

   Synonym: thrash

   • 2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, in 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.

   • 1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Evil Clergyman:

     He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.

3. (transitive) To thresh.
4. (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

• flail about

Translations

References

Further reading

• flail on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Flail in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Filla, alfil