flail

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”).

• IPA^(key): /fleɪl/
• (dialectal, archaic) IPA^(key): /fɹeɪl/ (see frail)^[1]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

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

3. (often plural) Part of a rotating device, often used for cutting vegetation.
   • 1957 December, “Diesel Depot for Darlington”, in Railway Magazine, page 876:

     The carriage washing plant uses four pairs of rotating rag flails and will be capable of dealing with the whole of the diesel units as well as steam stock used for main-line trains.

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^[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.

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[.]

• flounder

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

• Filla, alfil