flail
pronunciation
How to pronounce flail in British English:
UK [fleɪl]
How to pronounce flail in American English:
US [flel]
-
- Noun:
- an implement consisting of handle with a free swinging stick at the end; used in manual threshing
-
- Verb:
- give a thrashing to; beat hard
- move like a flail; thresh about
Word Origin
- flail
- flail: [OE] Flail is a distant relative of flagellation [15]. Both go back ultimately to Latin flagrum ‘whip’. This had a diminutive form flagellum, which in prehistoric times was borrowed into West Germanic as *flagil-. It is assumed that Old English inherited it as *flegil (although this is not actually recorded), which, reinforced in Middle English times by the related Old French flaiel, produced modern English flail. Flagellation comes from the derived Latin verb flagellāre ‘whip’.=> flagellation
- flail (n.)
- implement for threshing grain, c. 1100, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *flegel, which, if it existed, probably is from West Germanic *flagil (cognates: Middle Dutch and Low German vlegel, Old High German flegel, German flegel), a West Germanic borrowing of Late Latin flagellum "winnowing tool, flail," in classical Latin "a whip" (see flagellum).
- flail (v.)
- mid-15c., "to whip, scourge," from flail (n.). Sense of "to move like a flail" is from 1873. Related: Flailed; flailing.
Example
- 1. Move like a flail thresh about .
- 2. We flail about in the dark .
- 3. Flail and crook a symbol of royalty , majesty and dominion .
- 4. As free market democracies flail , watch out for china .
- 5. I am a defeated people , the pride of aristocracy degenerated into an instant flail prisoners .