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flail

[fleyl]

noun

an instrument for threshing grain, consisting of a staff or handle to one end of which is attached a freely swinging stick or bar.

a similar instrument used as a weapon of war.

verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

to beat or swing with or as if with a flail.

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Flail is one of our favorite verbs.

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chat, to converse

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

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Origin:
before 1100; Middle English fleil (noun), Old English flighel (probably misspelling of *flegil), cognate with Dutch vlegel, German Flegel < West Germanic *flagil- < Late Latin flagellum flail, Latin: whip, scourge. See flagellum

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To flail

Example Sentences

Another third would flail and swallow some water, but somehow they'd make it to the water's edge.

On the road to the main cemetery, rain-soaked policemen flail their batons at delivery trucks co-opted as hearses.

They didn't see her trip on a branch and flail endlessly to get on her feet.

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Another third would flail and swallow some water, but somehow they'd make it to the water's edge.

On the road to the main cemetery, rain-soaked policemen flail their batons at delivery trucks co-opted as hearses.

They didn't see her trip on a branch and flail endlessly to get on her feet.

Crocodiles position themselves nearby, picking off the animals as they flail in the water.

When angry, he is known to shout, turn red and flail his arms.

They did everything right by their children, only to watch them flail.

Onstage and off, people flail the air in hippie dances.

Behold the children, the issue, of this encounter as they flail about and rail against the world in no-man's-land.

Side effects of her medicines made her arms and legs flail out of control, and she could not teach.

Sometimes it didn't matter: he'd flail at me anyway.

When the bell rings, novices forget everything they have learned and simply flail away.

Any real-life teenager facing such a catastrophe would flail and fall apart.

His arms flail as if he were a cop at an intersection.

The abandoned appendage has a network of neurons that guides it to flail about even after losing its connection to the brain.

Like an elderly couple doing the fox trot as the young folk thrash and flail on the dance floor.

As this political thriller unfolds and the three stars flail around with their.

They flap and flail their arms, palms slapping thighs.

Stockbrokers scale wobbling ladders with beers and butterfly nets and flail at the plastic downpour.

One child will flail about with scissors, another must bite or shove, and there's always the.

They flail their arms around and gyrate their hips and completely, completely let themselves.

He doesn't continually flail the air with savage practice swings.

When you go to the hole and you think you're getting hit, the first thing you do is flail or yell.

Watching the current lineup flail at the ball was what finally made me decide to take action.

There will be men who flail their arms and those whose arms pump smoothly at their waists.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

flail (fleɪl)

—n
1.	an implement used for threshing grain, consisting of a wooden handle with a free-swinging metal or wooden bar attached to it
2.	a weapon so shaped used in the Middle Ages

—vb
3.	(tr) to beat or thrash with or as if with a flail
4.	to move or be moved like a flail; thresh about: with arms flailing

[C12 fleil, ultimately from Late Latin flagellum flail, from Latin: whip]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

flail

"implement for threshing grain," c.1100, from an unrecorded O.E. *flegel, which probably represents W.Gmc. *flagil (cf. M.Du., Low Ger. vlegel, O.H.G. flegel, Ger. flegel), a borrowing of L.L. flagellum "winnowing tool, flail," from L. flagellum "whip." The verb is 15c., from the noun; originally "to

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scourge;" sense of "to move like a flail" is from 1874. Related: Flailed; flailing.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

flail (flāl)
v. flailed, flail·ing, flails

To move vigorously or erratically; thrash about.
To strike or lash out violently.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia

flail

ancient hand tool for threshing grain. It consists of two pieces of wood: the handstaff, or helve, and the beater, joined by a thong. The handstaff is a light rod several feet long, the beater a shorter piece. With a flail, one man could thresh 7 bushels of wheat, 8 of rye, 15 of barley, 18 of oats, or 20 of buckwheat in a day (one bushel equals about 35 litres). The flail remained the principal method of threshing until the mid-19th century, when mechanical threshers became widespread (see thresher).

Learn more about flail with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Matching Quote

"A sudden light transfigures a trivial thing, a weather-vane, a wind-mill, a winnowing flail, the dust in the barn door; a moment,—and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again."

-Walter Pater

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