[Not found until 16th c.; possibly:—OE. *flaȝu = MDu. vlāghe (Du. vlaag), MLG. vlage, Sw. flaga, of same meaning; the primary sense may be ‘stroke’ (Aryan root *plak-: see FLAY v.).]
1. A sudden burst or squall of wind; a sudden blast or gust, usually of short duration.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VIII. Prol. 49.
| Flaggis of fyir, and mony felloun flawe, | |
| Scharp soppis of sleit, and of the snypand snawe. |
1526. Tindale, Acts xxvii. 14. There arose (agaynste theyr purpose) a flawe off wynde out of the northeste.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, I. xi. 13. We discouered the citie of Gigeri, but euen thinking to be neere it, within a moment arose such a sodain Borasque or Flaa, that if our marriners had not nimbly bestirred them selues in taking in of their sailes, we had byn in great danger to haue been all drowned.
1628. Digby, Voy. Medit. (1868), 51. Towardes night it was lesse wind, but came vncertainely and by flawes.
1674. Josselyn, Voy. New Eng., 54. We have upon our Coast in England a Michaelmas flaw, that seldom fails.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 128. The wind … blew … not only by squalls and sudden flaws, but a settled terrible tempest.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., VI. ix. (1849), 379. Wolfert Van Horne, a tall spare man, who was knocked overboard by the boom of a sloop in a flaw of wind.
1839. Longf., Wreck Hesperus, iii.
| The skipper he stood beside the helm, | |
| His pipe was in his mouth, | |
| And he watched how the veering flaw did blow | |
| The smoke now West, now South. |
1881. C. H. Farnham, Ice-yachting on the Hudson, in Scribner’s Monthly, XXII. Aug., 530/1. You go on down the river now with a good wind on the beam. The playful breeze freshens in flaws, as if trying to escape you; but still you follow its wayward motions: you start when it starts, flit over the ice with its own speed, turn and glide with the lightness and the grace of its own whirling dance.
fig. 1567. Turberv., Louer to Cupid, Epitaphes (1867), 85.
| He would maintaine my right | |
| and further aye my cause, | |
| And bannish all dispaire that grewe | |
| by frowarde fortunes flawes. |
1590. Nashe, Pasquil’s Apol., 7. Sure I am that by practises and pollicies, the garment of Christ is torne in peeces, and the Church is ouertaken with such a flawe, that it is high time euery fugitiue of the faction were hurled with Jonas into the Sea.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr., III. 24. Like all arguers not very brilliant, he would flounder and diverge away right and left, just as the flaws of ideas came into his head.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., xv. 375. He, in his erect and steady attachment to his king, form a striking contrast to the self-seeking adherence of those sunshine courtiers and flatterers, who shroud themselves from the first flaw of adversity that rocks the structure which their rapacity has endangered.
b. A fall of rain or snow accompanied by gusty winds; a short spell of rough weather.
1791. Statist. Acc. Scotl., I. 422. The falls of snow, which generally happen in March all over Great Britain, is in this neighbourhood called St. Causnan’s Flaw.
1830. Scott, Jrnl., 7 July. I rather like a flaw of weather; it shows something of the old man is left.
1892. Stevenson, Across the Plains, 209. You might bathe, now in the flaws of fine weather, that we pathetically call our summer, now in a gale of wind, with the sand scourging your bare hide. Ibid., 212. Trumpeting squalls, scouring flaws of rain.
† 2. fig. A sudden rush or onset; a burst of feeling or passion; a sudden uproar or tumult. Obs.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. v. 6.
| She at the first encounter on him ran | |
| With furious rage, as if she had intended | |
| Out of his breast the very heart haue rended: | |
| But he that had like tempests often tride, | |
| From that first flaw him selfe right well defended. |
1605. Shaks., Macb., III. iv. 63.
| O, these flawes and starts | |
| (Imposters to true feare) would well become | |
| A womans story. |
1676. Dryden, Aurengz., V. i.
| And deluges of Armies, from the Town, | |
| Came pow’ring in: I heard the mighty flaw, | |
| When first it broke. |
¶ 3. Used as rendering of F. fléau scourge.
1481. Caxton, Godfrey, 33. Suffred a grete flawe to come in to the contre for to chastyse the peple.
4. Comb. as flaw-blown adj.; also, † flaw-flower, a name for Anemone Pulsatilla.
1820. Keats, Eve St. Agnes, xxxvii.
| ’Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet: | |
| ‘This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!’ | |
| ’Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat: | |
| ‘No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!’ |
1597. Gerard, Herball, II. lxxiii. § 3. 309. Passe flower is called … after the Latin name Pulsatill, or *Flawe flower.
