different between flail vs cuff

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Etymology 1

From Middle English cuffe, coffe (“glove, mitten”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old English cuffie (“hood, cap”), from Medieval Latin cofia, cofea, cuffa, cuphia (“helmet, headdress, hood, cap”), from Frankish *kuf(f)ja (“headdress”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuffju, from Proto-Germanic *kupj? (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).

Noun

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (obsolete) glove; mitten
2. the end of a shirt sleeve that covers the wrist
3. the end of a pants leg, folded up
4. (informal, plural only) handcuffs

Derived terms

• shoot one's cuffs

Related terms

• cufflinks
• turnup
• off-the-cuff

Translations

Verb

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To furnish with cuffs.
2. (transitive) To handcuff.

Translations

Etymology 2

1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”), from the Proto-Germanic base *skuf- (sku?), from Proto-Indo-European *skewb?-, see also Lithuanian skùbti (“to hurry”), Polish skuba? (“to pluck”), Albanian humb (“to lose”).

Germanic cognates include Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.

Verb

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

1. (transitive) To hit, as a reproach, particularly with the open palm to the head; to slap.
   • [They] with their quills did all the hurt they could, / And cuff'd the tender chickens from their food.

2. (intransitive) To fight; to scuffle; to box.

   • While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.

3. To buffet.

   • cuffed by the gale

Translations

Noun

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. A blow, especially with the open hand; a box; a slap.
   • many a bitter kick and cuff

Etymology 3

Noun

cuff (plural cuffs)

1. (Scotland) The scruff of the neck.