[f. FLING v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FLING in various senses.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, VIII. 323.
| The hors that [woundyt] war can fling, | |
| And ruschit the folk in thair flynsging. |
1570–6. Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent (1826), 415. King Henry the fourth … kept the Saddle in all this leaping and flinging.
1631. J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, 443. It happened that himselfe running, by the flinging of his horse was cast out of his sadle.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Flinging is the fiery, unruly Action of an unruly Horse, or a kicking with the Hind-legs.
2. concr. The thing thrown, a missile.
1618. Bolton, Florus (1636), 315. Plying them what with darts, and all sorts of flingings, what with beak-heads, or prows, and castings of fire, scattred them all at pleasure.
3. Comb., as flinging-tree: (a) the striking part of the flail; (b) ‘a piece of timber hung by way of partition between two horses in a stable’ (Burns’ Poems, 1800, Gloss.)
1785. Burns, Vision, I. ii.
| The thresher’s weary flingin-tree, | |
| The lee-lang day had tired me. |
