flesh, to feed with flesh, to satiate, All’s Well, iv. 3. 19; 2 Hen. IV, iv. 5. 133; to feed the sword with flesh for the first time, 1 Hen. IV, v. 4. 133; to make fierce and eager for combat, King John, v. 1. 71. Hence fleshed, eager for battle, inured to bloodshed, Richard III, iv. 3. 6; ‘A flesh’d ruffian’, Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, iv. 2 (Zabulon).
fletcher, a maker or seller of arrows. Ascham, Toxophilus, p. 110; ‘Jack Fletcher and his bolt’, Damon and Pithias (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 19). Anglo-F. fleccher, arrow-maker (Rough List); F. flèche, arrow.
flete, to float. Surrey, Description of Spring, 8; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 4. Fletyng, floating, swimming, Surrey, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 259. See [fleet].
flew, the large chaps of a deep-mouthed hound; as of a bloodhound. Hence flews, with the sense of flaps, or flapping skirts, Dekker, Shoemakers’ Holiday, v. 4 (Eyre). Hence also flew’d, having flews (of a particular quality), Mids. Night’s D. iv. 1. 125.
flew, a tube, pipe; see [flue].
flibote, fly-boat, a fast-sailing vessel. Heywood, King Edw. IV (Spicing), vol. i, p. 38; If you know not me (Medina), vol. i, p. 336. Dutch Vlie-boot, boat on the river Vlie, the channel leading out of the Zuyder Zee. See NED. (s.v. Fly-boat).
flicker, to flutter. Fletcher, Pilgrim, i. 1 (Alphonso); Dryden, Palamon, 1399. Metaph. to make fond movements, as with wings: Palsgrave has, ‘I flycker, I kysse together.’
flicker-mouse, a bat, a ‘flittermouse’. B. Jonson, New Inn, iii. 1; ‘Ratepenade, a bat, rearmouse or flickermouse’, Cotgrave. A Sussex word (EDD.).
flidge, fledged, furnished with feathers. Warner, Albion’s England. bk. ii, ch. 10, st. 48; Peacham, Comp. Gentleman, c. 4, p. 33; flig, Peele, Edw. I (ed. Dyce, p. 408). OE. flyege, fledged. See [fledge].
flight, an arrow for long distances, light and well-feathered. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, v. 3 (2 Masque: Cupid); flight-shot, the distance to which a flight-arrow is shot, about 600 yards; ‘A flite shot over, as much as the Tamise is above the Bridge’, Leland, Itin. (ed. 1744, iv. 41); ‘It being from the park about two flight-shots in length’, Desc. of Royal Entertainment, 1613 (Works of T. Campion, ed. Bullen, p. 179); ‘Two flight-shot off’, Heywood, A Woman Killed, iv. 5. 2.