[f. as prec. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FLICKER in various senses.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 165/2. Flekerynge of byrdys, volitacio. Flekerynge, or wauerynge yn an vnstable hert, vacillacio.
1527. Prose Life St. Brandan (Percy Soc.), 40. He [the Byrde] with flykerynge of his wynges made a full mery noyse lyke a fydle, that hym semed he herde never so joyfull a melodye.
1776. J. Adams, Fam. Lett. (1876), 175. I shall send you the newspapers, which will inform you of public affairs, and the particular flickering of parties in this colony.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. xliv.
| Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste | |
| With its own flickering, or a sword laid by | |
| Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. |
1875. S. Lanier, Poems, The Symphony, 156.
| All gracious curves of slender wings, | |
| Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, | |
| Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings. |
1883. R. Turner, Vegetable Villains, in Good Words, XXIV. July, 469/1. We all know what a pleasant faint rustle of leaves there is above, and what a flickering of mellowed sunlight comes over the eyes, and how these steal in the heart with a sense of soft content, till we are apt to become like little children, enjoying without much thought, yielding ourselves up to the delight of the mere living, letting our consciousness float along lazily on the current of being.
