different between flail vs club

English

Etymology

From Middle English flaile, flayle, from earlier fleil, fleyl, fle??l, flegl, from Old English fligel, *flegel (“flail”), from Proto-Germanic *flagilaz (“flail, whip”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Old French fil and Latin f?lum ("a fine thread or wire, a filament", i.e. a defiling instrument for the thrashing of a wire). Cognate with Scots flail (“a thresher's flail”), West Frisian fleil, flaaiel (“flail”), Dutch vlegel (“flail”), Low German vlegel (“flail”), German Flegel (“flail”). Possibly a native Germanic word from Proto-Germanic *flag-, *flah- (“to whip, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh?k- (“to beat, hit, strike; weep”); compare Lithuanian plàkti (“to whip, lash, flog”), Ancient Greek ????????? (pl?gnúnai, “strike, hit, encounter”), Latin plang? (“lament”, i.e. “beat one's breast”) + Proto-Germanic *-ilaz (instrumental suffix); or a borrowing of Latin flagellum, diminutive of flagrum (“scourge, whip”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?lag-, *b?la?- (“to beat”); compare Old Norse blekkja (“to beat, mistreat”). Compare also Old French flael (“flail”), Walloon flayea (“flail”) (locally pronounced "flai"), Italian flagello (“scourge, whip, plague”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fle?l/
• Rhymes: -e?l

Noun

flail (plural flails)

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.

Synonyms

• threshel, thrashel

Quotations

• 1631 — John Milton, L'Allegro

  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
  That ten day-labourers could not end;

• 1816 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

  Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
  Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail

• 1842 — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp

  On him alone the curse of Cain
  Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
  And struck him to the earth!

• 1879 — Henry George, Progress and Poverty, ch V

  If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher...

Translations

Coordinate terms

• (weapon): nunchaku

Verb

flail (third-person singular simple present flails, present participle flailing, simple past and past participle flailed)

1. (transitive) To beat using a flail or similar implement.
2. (transitive) To wave or swing vigorously

   Synonym: thrash

   • 1937, H. P. Lovecraft, The Evil Clergyman

     He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.

3. (transitive) To thresh.
4. (intransitive) To move like a flail.

Translations

See also

• flail on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Flail in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

English

Etymology

From Middle English clubbe, from Old Norse klubba, klumba (“cudgel”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“clip, clasp; clump, lump; log, block”), from Proto-Indo-European *glemb- (“log, block”), from *gel- (“to ball up, conglomerate, amass”). Cognate with English clump, cloud, Latin globus, glomus; and perhaps related to Middle Low German kolve (“bulb”), German Kolben (“butt, bulb, club”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kl?b, IPA^(key): /kl?b/
• Rhymes: -?b

Noun

club (plural clubs)

1. An association of members joining together for some common purpose, especially sports or recreation.

   • At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   1. (archaic) The fees associated with belonging to such a club.
      • 1783, Benjamin Franklin:^[1]

        He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

2. A heavy stick intended for use as a weapon or plaything.
   1. An implement to hit the ball in certain ball games, such as golf.
3. A joint charge of expense, or any person's share of it; a contribution to a common fund.
   • 17 Mat 1660, Samuel Pepys, diary

     first we went and dined at a French house , but paid 10s for our part of the club

4. An establishment that provides staged entertainment, often with food and drink, such as a nightclub.

5. A black clover shape (?), one of the four symbols used to mark the suits of playing cards.
   1. A playing card marked with such a symbol.

6. (humorous) Any set of people with a shared characteristic.

7. A club sandwich.
   • 2004, Joanne M. Anderson, Small-town Restaurants in Virginia (page 123)

     Crab cake sandwiches, tuna melts, chicken clubs, salmon cakes, and prime-rib sandwiches are usually on the menu.

8. The slice of bread in the middle of a club sandwich.

Synonyms

• (association of members): confraternity
• (weapon): cudgel
• (sports association): team

Hyponyms

• chess club
• sports club

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Tokelauan: kalapu

Translations

Verb

club (third-person singular simple present clubs, present participle clubbing, simple past and past participle clubbed)

1. (transitive) To hit with a club.

   He clubbed the poor dog.

2. (intransitive) To join together to form a group.

   • Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream / Of fancy, madly met, and clubb'd into a dream.

3. (intransitive, transitive) To combine into a club-shaped mass.

   a medical condition with clubbing of the fingers and toes

4. (intransitive) To go to nightclubs.

   We went clubbing in Ibiza.

   When I was younger, I used to go clubbing almost every night.

5. (intransitive) To pay an equal or proportionate share of a common charge or expense.
   • 1730, Jonathan Swift, Death and Daphne

     The owl, the raven, and the bat / Clubb'd for a feather to his hat.

6. (transitive) To raise, or defray, by a proportional assessment.

   to club the expense

7. (nautical) To drift in a current with an anchor out.
8. (military) To throw, or allow to fall, into confusion.
9. (transitive) To unite, or contribute, for the accomplishment of a common end.

   to club exertions

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

     For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their several talents to have composed a treatise on the art of dancing: I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent treatise which Mr Essex hath given us on that subject, entitled, The Rudiments of Genteel Education.
10. (transitive, military) To turn the breech of (a musket) uppermost, so as to use it as a club.

Derived terms

• clubbing
• go clubbing

Translations

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Noun

club m (plural clubs)

1. club (association)
2. (golf) club

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl?p/
• Hyphenation: club
• Rhymes: -?p

Noun

club m (plural clubs, diminutive clubje n)

1. club, association
2. (golf) club

Derived terms

• clubhuis
• damclub
• golfclub
• handbalclub
• schaakclub
• skiclub
• stamclub
• tennisclub
• voetbalclub

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• (France) IPA^(key): /klœb/, /klyb/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /kl?b/

Noun

club m (plural clubs)

1. club (association)
2. (golf) club

Synonyms

• (golf club): bâton (Quebec)

Derived terms

• bienvenue au club

Further reading

• “club” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?klab/, /?kl?b/

Noun

club m (invariable)

1. club (association)
2. club (golf implement)

Middle English

Noun

club

1. Alternative form of clubbe

Romanian

Etymology

From French club.

Noun

club n (plural cluburi)

1. club

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English club.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?klub/, [?klu??]

Noun

club m (plural clubs or clubes)

1. club (association)

   Synonyms: asociación, cofradía, gremio

Derived terms

• club de fans
• club nocturno

Further reading

• “club” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.