fluxure, fluidity; also, moisture; ‘Moisture and fluxure’, B. Jonson, Induct. to Ev. Man out of Humour (Asper); Mirror for Mag., Cromwell (by Drayton), st. 117. Late L. fluxura (Tertullian).
fly, a domestic parasite, a familiar. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii. 2 (Theoph.). Also, a familiar spirit; ‘I have my flies abroad’, B. Jonson, Alchem. iii. 2 (Face). See NED. (s.v. Fly, sb.1 5, a, b.).
fly-boat; see [flibote].
fob; See [fub] (2).
fobus, a cheat; for fob-us, i.e. cheat us; from fob, to cheat. ‘You old fobus’, Wycherley, Plain Dealer, ii (Jerry).
fode, a creature, person, man. Squire of Low Degree, l. 364; in Hazlitt, Early Pop. Poetry, ii. 37; The World and the Child, l. 4; in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 243. Also, a companion, id. 247. ME. fode, a person, creature (Prov. Hendyng, 63); see Dict. M. and S.
fode, foad, to beguile with show of kindness or fair words, to soothe in fancied security. Golding translates ‘Favet huic Aurora timori’, in Ovid, Met. vii. 721, by ‘The morning foading this my feare’, ed. 1587, 99b. Skelton has fode, Magnyfycence, 1719. ME. foden, to beguile (Will. Palerne, 1646).
fog, rank, coarse grass. Drayton, Pol. xiii. 399; ‘Fogg in some places signifies long grass remaining in pasture till winter’, Worlidge, Dict. Rust.; ‘Fogge, postfaenium’, Levins, Manipulus. Hence foggy, abounding in coarse grass, Drayton, Pol. xxiii. 115; moist, Golding, Metam. xv. 203. ‘Fog’ is in prov. use in various parts of England for the aftermath; the long grass left standing in the fields during winter (EDD.). ME. fogge (Cleanness, 1683, in Allit. Poems, 85). Norm. dial. fogge, long grass (Ross).
fog, to traffic in a servile way, hunt after, cheat. Fogging rascal, Webster, Devil’s Law-case, iv. 2 (Ariosto). A back-formation from fogger; cp. ‘pettyfogger’; see Dict. (s.v. Petty).
foggy, flabby, puffy, corpulent; ‘Fat and foggy’, Contention betw. Liberality and Prodigality, v. 4 (Lib.); in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 377; ‘Un enbonpoint de nourrice, a plump, fat, or foggy constitution of body’, Cotgrave; ‘Foggy, to [too] ful of waste flesshe’, Palsgrave. Also fog, bloated, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 672. ‘Foggy’ is in prov. use in the north country for fat, corpulent.