Crossword clues for flail
flail
- Thrash (about)
- Swing violently
- Swing vigorously
- Swing around wildly
- Wave (one's arms) about
- Thresher's tool
- Thrashing tool
- Thrash (around)
- Take wild swings
- Swing your arms wildly
- Swing with abandon
- Swing willy-nilly
- Swing out of control
- Swing in a frenzied way
- Swing around madly
- Struggle helplessly
- Struggle dramatically
- One way to attract a lifeguard
- Move like a promotional tube man
- Forerunner of a threshing machine
- Dance uncontrollably
- Complicate a lifeguard's rescue
- Catch the lifeguard's eye, in a way
- Attract the lifeguard
- Swing wildly, as one's arms
- Threshing tool
- Thrash about wildly
- Beat
- An implement consisting of handle with a free swinging stick at the end
- Used in manual threshing
- Grain threshing tool
- Grain thresher
- Threshing implement
- Threshing instrument
- Thr(a/e)sh
- Whip
- Thrash or thresh
- Grain-threshing implement
- Beat learner driver involved in crash
- Don't pass round large flounder
- Toss about
- Swing about
- Dance wildly
- Wave wildly
- Threshing aid
- Attract the lifeguard, perhaps
- Thresh about
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flail \Flail\, n. [L. flagellum whip, scourge, in LL., a threshing flail: cf. OF. flael, flaiel, F. fl['e]au. See Flagellum.]
-
An instrument for threshing or beating grain from the ear by hand, consisting of a wooden staff or handle, at the end of which a stouter and shorter pole or club, called a swipe, is so hung as to swing freely.
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn.
--Milton. -
An ancient military weapon, like the common flail, often having the striking part armed with rows of spikes, or loaded.
--Fairholt.No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail, loaded with lead, to brain the Popish assassins.
--Macaulay.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
implement for threshing grain, c.1100, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *flegel, which, if it existed, probably is from West Germanic *flagil (cognates: Middle Dutch and Low German vlegel, Old High German flegel, German flegel), a West Germanic borrowing of Late Latin flagellum "winnowing tool, flail," in classical Latin "a whip" (see flagellum).
mid-15c., "to whip, scourge," from flail (n.). Sense of "to move like a flail" is from 1873. Related: Flailed; flailing.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material. 2 A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To beat using a flail or similar implement. 2 (context transitive English) To wave or swing vigorously 3 (context transitive English) To thresh. 4 (context intransitive English) To move like a flail.
WordNet
Wikipedia
The term flail refers to two different weapons: a long, two-handed infantry weapon with a cylindrical head, and a shorter weapon with a round metal striking head. The defining characteristic of both is that they involve a separate striking head attached to a handle by a flexible rope, strap, or chain. The chief tactical virtue of the flail was its capacity to strike around a defender's shield or parry. Its chief liability was a lack of precision and the difficulty of using it in close combat, or closely ranked formations.
The longer cylindrical-headed flail is a hand weapon derived from the agricultural tool of the same name, commonly used in threshing. It was primarily considered a peasant's weapon, and while not common, they were deployed in Germany and Central Europe in the later Late Middle Ages. The smaller, more spherical-headed flail appears to be even less common; it appears occasionally in artwork from the 15th century onward, but many historians have expressed doubts that it ever saw use as an actual military weapon.
A flail is an agricultural implement for threshing.
Several tools operate similarly to the agricultural implement and are also called flails:
- Flail (weapon), a ball-on-a-chain bludgeon wielded with one hand by armored knights in single combat or medieval battles
- Mine flail, a vehicle mounted device for removing land mines
- The cutting part in some designs of brush hog, woodchipper and stump grinder
A flail is an agricultural tool used for threshing, the process of separating grains from their husks.
It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the other (the swipple) to strike a pile of grain, loosening the husks. The precise dimensions and shape of flails were determined by generations of farmers to suit the particular grain they were harvesting. For example, flails used by farmers in Quebec to process wheat were generally made from two pieces of wood, the handle being about long by in diameter, and the second stick being about long by about in diameter, with a slight taper towards the end. Flails for other grains, such as rice or spelt, would have had different dimensions. Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as combine harvesters that require much less manual labour. But in many places, such as Minnesota, wild rice can only be harvested legally using manual means, specifically through the use of a canoe and a flail that is made of smooth, round wood no more than 30 inches long.
Usage examples of "flail".
The swordsman ducked under Ballas flailing arms and sent a disembowelling cut across Ballas belly.
Poor Ferdy started to look sick, flailing about with all four legs, until Barong caught him and held him still.
At least one Batavian had died under the flailing feet before the rest learned that the safe place to be was behind him or far to the side.
A few beet had entered with the people, and there was pandemonium inside the parlour as people tried to kill the bees, upsetting glasses and dishes as they flailed around them with newspapers and maga.
Judging by his clumsiness, his flailing efforts, I thought that the blackheart must be impairing his motor control.
He screamed in sonar, bubbles pouring out of his blowhole and backed up, his tail flailing wildly.
He flailed for balance, snatched at the closest tablecloth and dragged a cascade of smashing china and chinking silver to the floor as he fell.
Men in padded suits armed with sacks would occupy the ambushes, and if the dogs got close without discovering an ambush, the men were to jump out and flail threateningly at them.
It was like flailing in deep water as the riptide drags you inexorably out to sea.
The barbaric Shinyar, near-naked and tattooed and earringed, flailed at the sagging defense, but their numbers and the confining cave walls prevented them surging like a tidal wave.
His body floats above the open creche, his flailing hands can get no grip.
It pulled its rear up in a great arch, vised its prolegs into the hard earth, took the weight of its forebody, and with a flail lifted it, straightening the tube of bodiness, the humanish torso high at the end of outstretched grub physiognomy that batted uncertainly at the air, then onto the spongy caterpillar forelegs.
First the Emeraldina would stand atop it, then she would be flung off by the Kesperle, who would be frightened off by the Hanswurst flailing a long sausage, who would in turn be chased off by the Emeraldina wielding a brick.
The fearless Ismaili Assassins, seeking sure reward in the afterlife, screamed the name of God and flung themselves into the midst of the enemy, blades flailing.
He wore a puffed and powdered wig, and a garish ensemble of matching justicoat, waistcoat and breeches, his ruffled cravat sprouting from beneath his overlapping chins like the desperate hand of a drowning victim, flailing for aid.