Forms: 1 flicerian, -orian, 3–5 flikeren, (4 flikkere), 4–5 fleker, -ir, 5–6 fly(c)ker, 6 flickar, Sc. flickir, flikker, 6– flicker. [OE. flicorian, an onomatopœic formation with frequentative suffix (see -ER5), expressing repeated quick movement similar to that expressed by FLACKER, but slighter or less noisy.]
1. intr. Of a bird: To flutter; to hover. occas. To flap the wings; to move by flapping the wings.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Hom., II. 156. An blac þrostle flicorode ymbe his neb.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt’s. T., 1104. Above hir heed hir dowves flikeringe.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 109. Ovyr hyr as she [a dove] dede hovyr flekerynge.
1581. J. Merbecke, A Booke of Notes and Common places, 348. Estrich. This Bird hath such a waightie bodie, that he cannot mount vp to flie aloft, but flickereth in such wise as he cannot be ouergone.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 26. If the Duckes doe spread and flicker with their wings often and a long time together.
1700. Dryden, Palamon & Arcite, III. 122.
| The tuneful Lark already stretch’d her Wing, | |
| And flick’ring on her Nest, made short Essays to sing. |
1800. C. Smith, Solit. Wanderer, II. 41. I saw too in greater numbers, what I had before observed, the flying fish, pursued by the dolphins or other fish of prey, emerging from the waves on their wing-like fins, and flickering along the surface of the water; from whence they were sometimes driven by the appearance of a sea-bird, from whose attack they sheltered themselves again in their native element.
1892. Stevenson & Osbourne, Wrecker, xix. 304. The pinnacles of the church were flickered about all day long by a multitude of wings.
fig. c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 1193 (1221).
| For which her gost, that flikered aie a loft, | |
| Into her wofull herte ayen it went. |
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 64. From the fathers sermons shal such fond patcherye flicker?
† 2. To make caressing or fondling movements with the wing; hence, to act in a fondling or coaxing manner; to dally, hanker, look longingly (after).
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 290. Spit him amidde þe bearde to hoker & to schom, þet flikereð so mit þe.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 783. Yit wol thay kisse, and flikkere, and besien hemself.
1530. Palsgr., 552/2. I flycker, I kysse togyther, je baise.
1556. J. Heywood, Spider & F., lxiii. 42.
| Where they may win ought: by fayre disimilate show, | |
| There they flickar, and flatter, in fauer to grow. |
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iii. IV. ii. It is most odious, when an old acherontic dizzard, that hath one foot in his grave … shall flicker after a young wench that is blithe and bonny.
1697. Dryden, Virgil, Life, **iij b. The fair Lavinia is disobedient to the oracle and to the king, and looks a little flickering after Turnus.
1806. R. Jamieson, Pop. Ballads, I. 296.
| And Dorothy ween’d she mith lippen, | |
| And flicker’d at Willie again. |
b. slang and dial. (See quots.)
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, To flicker, to grin or flout.
1785–1823. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Flickering, grinning, or laughing in a man’s face.
1868. Atkinson, Cleveland Gloss., ‘He flicker’d and flyred lahk a girning cat.’
3. To make a fluttering or vibratory movement; to wave to and fro; to flutter (in the air or wind); to quiver, vibrate, undulate. Of wind: To blow in light gusts.
c. 1450. Merlin, 324. Ther thei reised theire baners a-lofte that flekered in the wynde, and the bright soone smote vpon the bright armurs that it glistered so bright that merveile was to be-holden.
a. 1577. Gascoigne, Wks. (1587), 299. I see not one … Whose feathers flant and flicker in the winds.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. XVIII. xxxv. 613. You shall marke the leaves of trees to move, flicker & play themselves.
1633. J. Fisher, True Trojans, II. v.
| Each nation being distinguisht into troopes, | |
| With gawdie pennons flickering in the aire. |
1793. Earl Buchan, Anon. & Fugit. Ess. (1812), 77. The rays of the sun, which from a height interposed, did but only skim the surface of the river, stained the pebbly shore between me and the stream with an azure blue of ultra marine, the water showed through its transparency a golden yellow on the sand at the bottom, and where the shadow of the overhanging rocks interrupted the transparency, the darkest indigo blue was seen as it were to float and to flicker on the surface of this molten gold, as it was moved either by the agitation of the onward course of the river, or by the influence of the breeze.
1831. Tennyson, Dream Fair Wom., 113.
| The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat; | |
| The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore; | |
| The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat; | |
| Touch’d; and I knew no more. | |
| Ibid. (1850), In Mem., cx. | |
| On thee the loyal-hearted hung, | |
| The proud was half disarm’d of pride, | |
| Nor cared the serpent at thy side | |
| To flicker with his double tongue. |
1873. Miss Thackeray, Old Kensington, xi. 89. A wet foggy wind flickered in his face.
b. trans. (causatively.) (Cf. FLICK v.2)
1843. Blackw. Mag., LIV. Sept., 399/2. We mount beside the red-faced, much-becoated individual who is flickering his whip in idle listlessness on the box.
† 4. To throb, palpitate, quiver. Obs.
c. 1470. Henry the Minstrel, Wallace, II. 268. His hart was wicht, and flykeryt to and fro.
1508. Dunbar, Test. A. Kennedy, 43.
| I leif my hert that never wes sickir, | |
| Sed semper variabile, | |
| That never mair wald flow nor flickir. |
1513. Douglas, Æneis, III. ix. 73. The hait flesch ondir his teth flikkerand. Ibid., V. viii. 115. Sprewland and flikkerand in the deid thrawis.
† 5. fig. Of a person: To waver, vacillate. Obs.
c. 1325. English Metrical Homilies, 92. This bischop flekerid in his thoht.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 165/2. Flekeryn, or waveryn yn vnstabylle herte, nuto.
6. To flash up and die away alternately. Of a flame: To burn fitfully or unsteadily; also with compl., out, etc.
Now the prevailing sense, though scarcely found earlier than the 19th c.
1605, 1791. [see FLICKERING ppl. a. 5].
1820. Keats, Eve St. Agnes, xl.
| A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door; | |
| The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, | |
| Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar; | |
| And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. |
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, iv. Eying the firmament, in which no slight shades of grey were beginning to flicker, to announce the approach of dawn, however distant.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., III. xv. 304. Clement’s censure had been mild sheet lightning, flickering harmlessly in the distance: Paul’s was the forked flash, intended to blight and kill.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. V. iv. 285.
| The stars conceal their glance and glow, | |
| The fire sinks down and flickers low. |
1883. S. C. Hall, Retrospect, II. 197. In this new vocation he might have been useful, but the oil in the lamp had run too low—the wasted flame soon afterwards flickered out. He died in 1840.
b. transf. and fig.; also with up.
1833. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. Pop. Fallacies. We love to see a way taste his own joke to his party; to watch a quirk or a merry conceit flickering upon the lips some seconds before the tongue is delivered of it.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, ix. 84. A faint smile flickered at his lips as he felt assured of his escape.
1862. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VII. lix. 244. A gleam of hope still flickered in their bosoms.
1876. J. Weiss, Wit, Hum. & Shaks., iii. 81. Dogberry flickers up into a kind of lukewarmness, and does his little to resent it.
1892. Speaker, VI. 3 Sept., 276/2. Some invisible Moloch on Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn keeps grim account of the precious lives which have gone to destruction over the precipice or flickered out in the cruel storm.
7. trans. To cause to flash or burn unsteadily or fitfully.
1859. The Saturday Review, VIII. 16 July, 70/2. While shops are being rifled, and women screaming for mercy, the Supreme Pontiff draws on his heavenly balance for a good round sum of curses, and flickers his lightnings over the prostrate rebels.
1882. T. Mozley, Remin., II. Add. 428. As soon as I knew it had been an earthquake, I felt very deeply impressed at the thought that the huge Alps all about us had been flickered like a candle and brandished as a sword.
8. intr. = BICKER. ? Obs.
1776. [see FLICKERING vbl. sb.].
1809. J. Adams, Wks., 1854, IX. 242. We flickered, disputed, and wrangled in public and private, but always with a species of good humor that never was suffered to diminish the confidence, esteem, or affection of either in the other.
