⁂ It was Thomas Maitland [i.e. R. W. Buchanan] who first gave them this appellation in the Contemporary Review.
Fletcher (Dick), one of the crew of a pirate vessel.—Sir W. Scott, The Pirate (time, William III.).
Fletcher (Philip), fine gentleman, suitor of Christie, in Louisa M. Olcot’s novel “Work.”
Fleur de Marie, the betrothed of Captain Phœbus.—Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris (1831).
Fleurant, an apothecary. He flies into a rage because Bérald (2 syl.) says to his brother, “Remettez cela à une fois, et demeurez un peu en repos.” The apothecary flares out, “De quoi vous mêlez vous de vous opposer aux ordonnance de la medicine ... je vais dire à Monsieur Purgon comme on m’a empêché d’executer ses ordres.... Vous verrez, vous verrez.”—Molière, La Malade Imaginaire (1673).
Flib´bertigib´bet, the fiend that gives man the squint eye and harelip, sends mildews and blight, etc.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet ... he gives the web and the pin [diseases of the eye], squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white heat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.—King Lear, act iii. sec. 4 (1605).
⁂ Shakespeare got this name from bishop Harsnett’s Declaration of Popish Impostures, where Flibberdigibet is one of the fiends which the Jesuits cast out of Mr. Edmund Peckham.
Flib´bertigib´bet, or “Dickie Sludge,” the dwarf grandson of Gammer Sludge (landlady of Erasmus Holiday, the schoolmaster in the vale of Whitehorse). In the entertainment given by the earl of Leicester to Queen Elizabeth, Dickon Sludge acts the part of an imp.—Sir W. Scott, Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).
Flint (Lord), chief minister of state to one of the sultans of India. He had the enviable faculty of a very short memory when he did not choose to recollect. “My people know, no doubt, but I cannot recollect,” was his stock phrase. Mrs. Inchbald, Such Things Are (1786).