Now chiefly dial. and Agric. [Perh. repr. OE. *fléat, corresponding to Du. vloot shallow (:—*flauto-), f. root of FLEET v.1]
1. Having little depth; shallow.
1621. Quarles, Argalus & P. (1678), 9.
| Hazard no more | |
| To wrack your fortunes on so fleet a shore, | |
| That to the wiser world, it may be known, | |
| The lesse y’are mine, the more you are your owne. |
1647. Trapp, Comm. Matt. xv. 8. The deeper or hollower the belly of the Lute or Viol is, the pleasanter is the sound: the fleeter, the more grating and harsh in our ears.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett. to People, 120. The method of cultivating them was to plough a very fleet furrow with a pair of horses.
1802. W. Taylor, in Robberds, Mem., I. 407. The milk-trays in the dairy should be fleet and superficial, not pail-shaped, because the formation of cream is accompanied with the absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere.
1842. Longf., Sp. Stud., III. vi.
| Wait not to find thy slippers, | |
| But come with thy naked feet; | |
| We shall have to pass through the dewy grass, | |
| And waters wide and fleet. |
1882. Blackw. Mag. CXXXI. Jan., 104/1. The outer curve of the river where the water is ‘fleet’ (shallow) and weedy, is left free, so that the weeds borne down by the tide, which always drift to the outer curve, may have free passage; the eels take the deeper water near the inner bank.
b. (That is) at no great depth; near the surface; esp. quasi-adv. in to plough or sow fleet.
1633. D. Rogers, Treat. Sacraments, I. 160. Sometime the roote is so bare and fleet, that it will scarce furnish the tree with leaves.
1674. N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 185. Sometimes we find Gold (a thing that changes as much, but feeds us little) as fleet as the roots of shrubs in Peru or the West Indies.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., ii. 80. Those Lands must be ploughed fleet, lest the Marle be drowned with the Wet.
1803. Sir J. Sinclair, in Annals Agric., XL. 322. It is in general a favourite maxim here ‘Fallow deep, but sow fleet,’ or on a shallow ploughing.
1845. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., V. II. 326. After the turnips are off, the land is ploughed ‘fleet,’ or about 31/2 inches deep across the ridges, with a skeleton plough.
1876. Surrey Gloss., s.v. To plough fleet is to skim-plough land.
† 2. Having little depth of soil; ‘light, superficially fruitful’ (J.). Obs.–1
1707. Mortimer, Husb., ii. 81. Marle Cope-ground, which is commonly a cold, stiff, wet Clay, and not so proper to be marled for Corn (except black Oats) unless in some places where ’tis very fleet for Pasture.
Hence Fleetly adv., with little depth; shallowly.
1844. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., V. I. 19. Rye is sown upon a very fine tilth, produced by more than one ploughing, and sown upon the surface or drilled fleetly, and lightly harrowed in.
