vbl. sb. Now dial. [f. FLITE v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb FLITE; contention, wrangling; scolding, rebuking; † a reproach.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 13. Twifold speche and ilch fliting of worde.
c. 1300. Cursor M., 27742 (Cott. Galba). Wreth … it makes fliteing and misdemes.
1435. Misyn, Fire of Love, 9. No man suld dar presume nor be pryde raise vp hym-self when he is despisid to hys repreue or when flitynges to hym ar cast.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxxxii. 8.
| May nane pas throw ȝour principall Gaittis, | |
| For stink of haddockis and of scaittis; | |
| For cryis of carlingis and debaittis; | |
| For fensum flyttingis of defame. |
1636. Rutherford, Lett., lxxiii. (1863), I. 189. My meek Lord held His peace, and beheld me, and would not contend for the last word of flyting; and now He hath chided Himself friends with me.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxix. ‘I hae nae pith to drive a bargain e’enow, and maun just take what ony Christian body will gie, wi’ few words and nae flyting.’
† b. Sc. Poetical invective; chiefly, a kind of contest practiced by the Scottish poets of the 16th c., in which two persons assailed each other alternately with tirades of abusive verse. Obs.
1508. Dunbar, Poems (title), The flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie.
1585. Jas. I., Ess. Poesie (Arb.), 63. Let all zour verse be Literall, sa far as may be, quhatsumeuer kynde they be of, bot speciallie Tumbling verse for flyting.
a. 1605. Montgomerie, Poems (title), The Flyting betwixt Montgomery and Polwart.
2. Comb.: fliting-free a., unrestricted in administering rebukes.
1637. Rutherford, Lett., clxxxi. (1863), I. 436. Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners.
1721. J. Kelly, Scot. Prov., 219. I am flyting free with you. I am so far out of the reach of your Tongue, that though we should scold, you have nothing to say to me.
