v. Obs. exc. dial. [freq. of flusk ‘to fly at, as two cocks’ (‘Tim Bobbin,’ Lanc. Dial.), ‘to startle a bird out of a bush’ (Almondbury Gloss., E.D.S.). Cf. FLUSH v.1, FLASKER v.]
1. a. intr. To flutter or fly irregularly.
1660–1794. [see FLUSKERING vbl. sb. and ppl. a.].
1820. Clare, Rural Life, 213.
| Not a sound was there heard—save a blackbird, or thrush, | |
| That, started from sleep, flusker’d out of the bush. | |
| Ibid. (1821), The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, I. 94, Autumn. | |
| The crowing pheasant, in the brakes, | |
| Betrays his lair with awkward squalls; | |
| A certain aim the gunner takes, | |
| He clumsy fluskers up, and falls. |
1877. Leigh, Chesh. Gloss., Flusker … to fly irregularly, as nestlings taking their first purposeless flight.
2. trans. To fluster, confuse. Only in pass.
1841. Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, Gloss., 429. Flusker, to be confused, giddy, stupified. Ex. ‘Meetily flusker’d.’ A depravation of fluster.
1854. Baker, Northampton Gloss., I. 248–9. ‘I was so fluskered, I could not tell what to do.’
Hence Fluskering vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1660. H. More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, VI. vi. 228. The offers and fluskerings, as I may so say, of the Faculties of the Soul of man, even in this state of Death and Imprisonment, as so High, so Noble and Divine. Ibid. (1668), Divine Dialogues, II. 48. What strange and unexpected fluskering conceits flie up into the youthful imagination of Hylobares upon his late persuasion of the Soul’s Preexistence!
1794. Gisborne, Walks Forest (1796), 69. Then with fluskering wings Broke forth.
1821. Clare, The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, I. 72. Holywell.
| While oft unhous’d from beds of ling | |
| The fluskering pheasant took to wing. |
