1624. Beaumont and Fletcher, Rule a Wife, &c., iii., 5. I’ll have a fling.
1846–8. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xiii. Hang it; the regiment’s just back from the West Indies, I must have a little fling, and then when I’m married I’ll reform.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II., 118. I don’t want to marry until I have had my fling, you know.
1880. Gilbert, Pirates of Penzance. Peers will be peers, And youth will have his fling.
1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 253. If policy (police) show up, then you let me have my fling, eh?
To fling dirt.—See dirt.
Flinger, subs. (Scots).—A dancer.
1821. Scott, Pirate, ch. ix. That’s as muckle as to say, that I suld hae minded you was a flinger and a fiddler yoursel’, Maister Mordaunt.
Fling-Dust, subs. (old).—A street-walker. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.
Flint, subs. (workmen’s). A man working for a ‘Union’ or ‘fair’ house; non-Unionists are dung (q.v.). Both terms occur in Foote’s burlesque, The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather, and they received a fresh lease of popularity during the tailors’ [[26]]strike of 1832. See quots. Cf., Scab Soc, Snob, Snob-stick, and Knobstick.