Obs. Forms: 1, 3–6, 8 flet, 3 south. vlet, 4–5 flett(e, (6 fleete, fleit, flelt), 7–8 flett. [OE. flęt(t = OFris. flet, OS. flet, fletti, OHG. flazi, flezi (MHG. vletze, Ger. dial. fletz), ON. flet str. neut.:—OTeut. *flatjom, f. *flato- FLAT a.]
1. The floor or ground under one’s feet.
Beowulf, 1568 (Gr.). Heo on flet ȝecrong.
a. 1000. Canons Powerful Men, ii. (Thorpe, 1840), 414. & ne cume on bedde ac licȝe on flette.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter, cxviii. [cxix.] 25.
| Clived mi saule to þi flet; | |
| After þi word qwiken me yhet. |
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 568. A tule tapit, tyȝt ouer þe flet.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 473.
| Thi berne also be playne, and harde the flette, | |
| And footes two to thicke it thou ne lette. |
c. 1450. Myrc, 273. Knelynge doun vp on the flette.
b. ? A place, spot, field (of battle).
c. 1205. Lay., 26023.
| Þat he com to þan ulette | |
| þer þe feond lai and slæpte. |
c. 1300. K. Alis., 2377.
| That the ost which they mette | |
| They broughte heom out of the flette. |
2. A dwelling, house, ‘hall.’
Beowulf, 1025 (Gr.).
| Beowulf ȝeþah | |
| ful on flette. |
a. 1000. Laws Hlothhære & Eadric, xi. (Thorpe, 1840), 13–4. Ȝif man mannan an uðres flette man-swara hateð … scillinȝ aȝelde þam þe þæt flet aȝe.
a. 1300. Dame Siriz, 273, in Wright, Anecdota Literaria, 9. So ich evere brouke hous other flet.
c. 1325. Poem Times Edw. II., 309, in Pol. Songs (Camden), 337. And hath an hep of girles sittende aboute the flet.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 26.
| I shal not in thi det | |
| Flyt of this flett! |
b. Sc. The inner part of a house.
a. 1400. Burgh Laws, xxiii. (Sc. Stat., I.). Þe inner halfe of þe hous þat is callyt þe flett.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, lxiv. 830.
| The fulis fonde in the flet | |
| And mony mowis at mete | |
| On the flure maid. |
1508. Dunbar, Flyting, 242. Rank beggar, ostir dregar, foule fleggar, in the flet.
1598. Ferguson, Sc. Prov., 4. A fair fire makes a room flet.
1768. A. Ross, Helenore, II. 588.
| That seven years hae sitten i’ the flet, | |
| An’ bangsters bauld upo’ their boddom set. |
3. Fire and flet (corruptly fleet): ‘fire and house-room’; an expression often occurring in wills, etc.
Bp. Kennett (a. 1728) quotes in MS. Lansd., 1033, fol. 132 an ‘old northern song over a dead corps,’ containing the lines ‘Fire and fleet and candle light, And Xt receive thy sawle.’ In Sir W. Scott’s Minstrelsy of Scot. Border (1802), 232 the words appear as ‘Fire and sleet,’ and the editor suggests that sleet ‘seems to be corrupted from selt, or salt, a quantity of which is frequently placed on the breast of a corpse’!
1533. Trubb, in Weaver, Wells Wills (1890), 129. To fynd the said wife of Joh. Trubbe mete and drink, fyer and flelt.
1539. Will of R. Marleyn (Somerset Ho.). My wife to have … fyre & fleete in my haule & kechin.
c. 1570. Durham Depositions (Surtees), 207. I trobled … this house with a bedd roome and fier and fleit.
