different between pound vs flail

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa?nd/
• Rhymes: -a?nd

Etymology 1

From Middle English pound, from Old English pund (“a pound, weight”), from Proto-Germanic *pund? (“pound, weight”), an early borrowing from Latin pond? (“by weight”), ablative form of pondus (“weight”), from Proto-Indo-European *pend-, *spend- (“to pull, stretch”). Cognate with Dutch pond, German Pfund, Swedish pund. Doublet of pood.

Noun

pound (plural pounds) (sometimes pound after numerals)

1. A unit of mass equal to 16 avoirdupois ounces (= 453.592 37 g). Today this value is the most common meaning of "pound" as a unit of weight.

   Synonym: lb

2. A unit of mass equal to 12 troy ounces (? 373.242 g). Today, this is a common unit of weight when measuring precious metals, and is little used elsewhere.

   Synonym: lb t

3. (US) The symbol # (octothorpe, hash)

   Synonyms: hash, sharp

4. The unit of currency used in the United Kingdom and its dependencies. It is divided into 100 pence.

   Synonyms: £, pound sterling, GBP, quid, nicker

5. Any of various units of currency used in Egypt and Lebanon, and formerly in the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Israel.

   Synonym: punt

6. Any of various units of currency formerly used in the United States.
7. Abbreviation for pound-force, a unit of force/weight. Using this abbreviation to describe pound-force is inaccurate and unscientific.

Usage notes

• Internationally, the "pound" has most commonly referred to the UK pound, £, (pound sterling). The other currencies were usually distinguished in some way, e.g., the "Irish pound" or the "punt".
• In the vicinity of each other country calling its currency the pound among English speakers the local currency would be the "pound", with all others distinguished, e.g., the "British pound", the "Egyptian pound" etc.
• The general plural of "pound" has usually been "pounds" (at least since Chaucer), but the continuing use of the Old English genitive or neuter "pound" as the plural after numerals (for both currency and weight) is common in some regions. It can be considered correct, or colloquial, depending on region.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Pound (the unit of mass) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Pound (the UK unit of currency) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• crown, farthing, florin, guinea, penny, pence, shilling, sovereign, sterling

Etymology 2

From Middle English pounde, ponde, pund, from Old English pund (“an enclosure”), related to Old English pyndan (“to enclose, shut up, dam, impound”). Compare also Old English pynd (“a cistern, lake”).

Noun

pound (plural pounds)

1. A place for the detention of stray or wandering animals.

   Synonym: animal shelter
2. (metonymically) The people who work for the pound.
3. (Britain) A place for the detention of automobiles that have been illegally parked, abandoned, etc. Short form of impound.

   Synonyms: (UK) car pound, (US) impound lot, (US) impound
4. A section of a canal between two adjacent locks.

   Synonym: reach

5. A kind of fishing net, having a large enclosure with a narrow entrance into which fish are directed by wings spreading outward.
6. (Newfoundland) a division inside a fishing stage where cod is cured in salt brine

   Synonym: bulk

Usage notes

• Manx English uses this word uncountably.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pound (third-person singular simple present pounds, present participle pounding, simple past and past participle pounded)

1. To confine in, or as in, a pound; to impound.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     When I short haue shorne my sowce face
     & swigg’d my horny barrell,
     In an oaken Inne I pound my skin
     as a suite of guilt apparrell

Etymology 3

From an alteration of earlier poun, pown, from Middle English pounen, from Old English p?nian (“to pound, beat, bray, bruise, crush”), from Proto-Germanic *p?n?n? (“to break to pieces, pulverise”). Related to Saterland Frisian Pün (“debris, fragments”), Dutch puin (“debris, fragments, rubbish”), Low German pun (“fragments”). Perhaps influenced by Etymology 2 Middle English *pound, pond, from Old English *pund, pynd, in relation to the hollow mortar for pounding with the pestle.

Alternative forms

• poun, pown (obsolete or dialectal)

Verb

pound (third-person singular simple present pounds, present participle pounding, simple past and past participle pounded)

1. (transitive) To strike hard, usually repeatedly.

   Synonyms: hammer, pelt; see also Thesaurus:hit
2. (transitive) To crush to pieces; to pulverize.

   Synonyms: pulverate, triturate
3. (transitive, slang) To eat or drink very quickly.

   Synonyms: bolt, down, chug; see also Thesaurus:eat, Thesaurus:drink
4. (transitive, baseball, slang) To pitch consistently to a certain location.

5. (intransitive, of a body part, generally heart, blood, or head) To beat strongly or throb.
6. (transitive, vulgar, slang) To penetrate sexually, with vigour.

   Synonyms: drill, get up in, nail, poke; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
7. To advance heavily with measured steps.
8. (engineering) To make a jarring noise, as when running.

9. (slang, dated) To wager a pound on.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• bang

Noun

pound (plural pounds)

1. A hard blow.

   Synonym: pounding

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

• pounde, pund, punde, powund

Etymology

From Old English pund, in turn from Proto-Germanic *pund?, from Latin pond?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pu?nd/, /pund/

Noun

pound (plural poundes or pounden or pound)

1. A measurement for weight, most notably the Tower pound, merchant's pound or pound avoirdupois, or a weight of said measurement.
2. A pound or other silver coin (including ancient coins), weighing one Tower pound of silver.
3. Money or coinage in general, especially a great amount of it.

Descendants

• English: pound
• Scots: pund, poond

References

• “p?und(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-02-22.

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)