Also 6 flancker, 7 flankier. [f. FLANK v.1 + -ER1.]
1. A fortification projecting so as to flank or defend another part, or to command the flank of an assailing enemy.
1550–1. Edward VI., Lit. Rem. (Roxb.), II. 307. Also for flankers at the kepe of Guisnes willed to be made, a thre-cornerde bulwark at the kepe, to kepe it.
1647. Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, III. vii. (1854), 181. Colonel Hammond possessed the west-gate, wherein were four pieces of ordnance, and two in the flanker.
1698. J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 59. The Castle is seated towards the bottom of the Bay, commanding it every way from the Points and Flankiers.
1753. J. Bowdoin, Letter to B. Franklin, 12 Nov., in Franklin’s Wks. (1887), II. 317, note. Our trunkhouses are built in form of a square, each side one hundred and fifty feet or more, at each corner a flanker, in which is a couple of canon.
1813. Scott, Trierm., III. xv.
| Embattled high and proudly towered, | |
| Shaded by ponderous flankers, lowered | |
| The portal’s gloomy way. |
† 2. A cannon posted so as to flank a position.
1575. Churchyard, Chippes (1817), 107.
| The flankers then in murdring holes that lay | |
| Went of and slew, God knowes stout men enow. |
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1191/2. Capteine Vaughan with diuerse of the bands in Montpelham gaue two false assaults to the towne, entered the ditches, and viewed the flankers; wherevpon the French shot off the same flankers, and manning their walles, shot off two or three volees of their small artillerie, slaieng and hurting to the number of twentie of the Englishmen.
3. One posted or stationed on either flank. a. Mil. One of a detachment of skirmishers thrown out on the flanks of an army when marching, to guard the line of march. Usually pl. [= F. flanqueur.]
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 159. Setting out his flankers in seuerall places according to the seruices, & appointed verie good leaders for the same.
1635. Barriffe, Mil. Discip., lxi. (1643), 161. In that order firing upon the enemie; the Pikes being the Flanquers: thereby defending the flanks of your shot from the fury of the Horse.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. xx. 96. With a few flankers or riflemen outside the whole.
1863. Cornh. Mag., VII. Jan., 52. In this campaign the Mooltanees were not, with one exception, so hotly engaged as they had been in the preceding one; but their services as scouts and flankers proved invaluable.
b. in non-military uses.
1827. Lady Morgan, O’Briens & O’Flahertys, I. 219. Lady Honoria was still excluded from the agreeable pastime of flirtation, by a blockade of carriages; and her old flanker the Castleknock.
1893. Standard Dict., Flanker 2. In grouse-driving, one of the men walking on the flanks of the line of drivers, to keep the birds in the desired line of flight.
4. Anything which flanks or adjoins laterally: esp. a. a side-wall of a courtyard; a wing of a building; † b. a side-piece of timber; c. a side-piece of armor (see quot. 1659), = FLANCARD; † d. a footpath by the side of a highway, a side-walk; e. one of the side horses in a three-horse vehicle.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, II. liv. 377*. To make them [citron-trees] a hood and flankers of Bay trees, for the encrease both of the beautifulnesse, as also of the profit of the same.
1611. Cotgr., Flanchere, A flanker, side peece, or flanking peece of timber, in building.
1631. Earl Cork, Diary, in Lismore Papers, Ser. I. (1886), III. 102. He bwylding theron an english howse of lyme, stone, and slatted; with 2 fflankers, within 4 yeares.
1659. Torriano, Fiancari, flankers, or sidepieces for an armed man or barbed horse.
1682. Wood, Life (1894), III. 25. The highway … pitched with peebles and hard stone, for two carts on breast,—the middle part with peebles and the two collaterals or flankers with hard white stone.
1823. Scott, Lett. to D. Terry, 29 Oct., in Lockhart. The front of the house is now enclosed by a courtyard wall, with flankers of 100 feet, and a handsome gateway.
1879. O’Donovan, in Daily News, 16 April, 3/1. While the central animal is … running along a deep narrow cutting, the flankers are on the top of high banks on either side; or vice versa.
