different between flail vs flagellate

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

Latin flagellum (“whip”)

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?l?t

Verb

flagellate (third-person singular simple present flagellates, present participle flagellating, simple past and past participle flagellated)

1. (transitive) To whip or scourge.

Related terms

• flagellation

Translations

Adjective

flagellate (comparative more flagellate, superlative most flagellate)

1. Resembling a whip.
2. (biology) Having flagella.

Related terms

• flagellum

Translations

Noun

flagellate (plural flagellates)

1. (biology) Any organism that has flagella.

Translations

Italian

Verb

flagellate

1. second-person plural present indicative of flagellare
2. second-person plural imperative of flagellare
3. feminine plural of flagellato

Latin

Verb

flagell?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of flagell?