Also 9 fleck. [f. FLICK sb.1; app. not recorded before the 19th c.]
1. trans. To strike lightly with something flexible, as a whip.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxiii. ‘Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone,’ said Mr. Crummles, flicking him skilfully on the eyelid for old acquaintance’ sake.
1873. Ouida, Pascarèl, II. xi. 247. Pascarèl flicking his mandoline into harmony with the lazzarone song which he was humming to himself.
1875. A. R. Hope, My Schoolboy Friends, 149. We would scramble out and run merrily over the daisies, shouting for glee, flicking each other with our towels, and disturbing the placid repast of sundry forlorn cows, who were wont to regard our proceedings with grave looks of surprise and disapproval.
1884. W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 61.
| O white-throat swallow flicking | |
| The loch with long wing-tips, | |
| Hear you the low sweet laughter | |
| Comes rippling from its lips? |
2. To remove (something) with a smart stroke of something flexible. Also with away.
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, ii. (1879), 30. Mr. Gudge attempted to flick a fly from the horse’s haunch in so savage a manner, that the animal jumped forward, and produced much undignified disarrangement in the attitudes of the occupiers of the four-wheeled chaise.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxviii. Whenever the old Chevalier de Talonrouge spoke of Mistress Osborne, he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the remaining particles of dust with a graceful wave of his hand, gather up his fingers again into a bunch, and, bringing them up to his mouth, blow them open with a kiss, exclaiming, Ah, la divine créature!
1887. Miss Braddon, Like & Unlike, I. ii. Miss Deverill … was … flicking the chalkmarks off the cloth with her handkerchief.
b. To throw (off, etc.) with a jerk; to jerk.
1816. T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, iv. I never saw one of your improved places, as you call them, and which are nothing but big bowling-greens, like sheets of green paper, with a parcel of round clumps scattered over them, like so many spots of ink, flicked at random out of a pen.
1882. W. J. Cummins, Catalogue Fishing Tackle, 10. Don’t attempt to throw against a strong wind, as you would be sure to ‘flick’ the fly off.
3. intr. To move with quick vibrations; (also, to flick it). Of a bird: To flutter; in quot. with out. Of a wound; To palpitate, throb. Cf. FLICKER.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxviii. (1856), 349. As it is, we are undoubtedly flicking it to the north again.
1866. Blackmore, Cradock Nowell, xxxi. The jar-bird flicked out from the ivy-drum.
1889. N. W. Linc. Gloss., Fleck.… To flutter, to throb. My thumb, I knew it was getherin’ it fleck’d soä.
a. 1890. R. F. Burton, in Life (1893), I. 90. When they should have been attending a musty lecture in the tutor’s room, they were flicking across the country at the rate of twelve miles an hour.
4. trans. To move or shake with a ‘flick’; to make a light stroke or movement with (a whip, etc.).
1844. Mrs. Houstoun, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, II. 313. The ladies sit down in a large half circle, and without saying a word, begin flicking about their fans with great perseverance.
1849. Alb. Smith, Pottleton Leg., xxxi. 357. The driver flicked his whip at her parasol, accompanying the action with a peculiar noise, something like a smack, from his lips.
1861. G. J. Cayley, Between the Cataracts without a Dragoman, in Fraser’s Mag., LXIV. Dec., 768/2. The sheet gave way, and our rotten old sail began to flick itself into shreds and tatters.
1877. C. Keene, Let., in G. S. Layard Life, ix. (1892), 251. I … tried to fish with a fly from a boat, but I was afraid of flicking my line into my host’s eye.
1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, xxxii. (1889), 312. The colonel had been one of the bathers, and he stood like a circus driver, flicking a wet towel at Crossjay capering.
1886. Stevenson, Pr. Otto, II. xii. 203. He flicked the order on the table.
absol. 1880. Blackw. Mag., CXXVII. Jan., 79/1. So, flicking first at one hind-leg, then at another, he succeeded, after some savage kicks, in getting her to face him.
