different between smack vs flail

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /smæk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

From Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæ?? (“taste, smatch”), from Proto-Germanic *smakkuz (“a taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeg?-, *smeg- (“to taste”). Cognate with English dialectal smatch, Scots smak (“scent, smell, taste, flavour”), Saterland Frisian Smoak (“taste”), West Frisian smaak (“taste”), Dutch smaak (“taste”), German Schmack, Geschmack (“taste”), Swedish and Norwegian smak (“taste”), Norwegian smekke . Akin to Old English smæ??an (“to taste, smack”). More at smake, smatch.

Noun

smack (countable and uncountable, plural smacks)

1. A distinct flavor, especially if slight.

   rice pudding with a smack of cinnamon
2. A slight trace of something; a smattering.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

3. (slang, uncountable) Heroin.
4. (Northern England) A form of fried potato; a scallop.

Derived terms

• foresmack
• smackless

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. (transitive) To get the flavor of.
   • 1827, Thomas Carlyle (translator), Johann August Musæus, "Melechsala" (1782-86); in German Romance I. 175

     He soon smacked the taste of physic hidden in this sweetness.

2. (intransitive) To indicate or suggest something; used with of.

   Her reckless behavior smacks of pride.
3. (intransitive) To have a particular taste; used with of.
   • 1820-25, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia

     He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

Derived terms

• smack of

Etymology 2

From Middle Low German smack (Low German Schmacke, Schmaake (“small ship”)) or Dutch smak, perhaps ultimately related to smakken, imitative of the sails' noise.

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

2. A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack
3. A group of jellyfish.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “smack”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymology 3

From Middle Dutch smacken, of imitative origin.

Akin to German schmatzen (“eat noisily”), Dutch smakken (“to fling down”), Plautdietsch schmaksen (“to smack the lips”), regional German schmacken, Schmackes (“vigour”) (compare Swedish smak (“slap”), Middle Low German smacken, the first part of Saterland Frisian smakmuulje (“smack”)).

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

1. A sharp blow; a slap. See also: spank.
2. The sound of a loud kiss.
3. A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. To slap or hit someone.
2. To make a smacking sound.
   • 1832, Banjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

     A horse neighed, and a whip smacked, there was a whistle, and the sound of a cart wheel.

3. (New Zealand) To strike a child (usually on the buttocks) as a form of discipline. (US spank)
4. To wetly separate the lips, making a noise, after tasting something or in expectation of a treat.
   • 1763, Robert Lloyd, “A Familiar Epistle” in St. James Magazine:

     But when, obedient to the mode / Of panegyric, courtly ode / The bard bestrides, his annual hack, / In vain I taste, and sip and smack, / I find no flavour of the Sack.

5. To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to make a sound when they separate.

Translations

Adverb

smack (not comparable)

1. As if with a smack or slap; smartly; sharply.

   Right smack bang in the middle.

Derived terms

• smack-dab

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

• macks

Swedish

Noun

smack n

1. (in the phrase "inte ett smack") smidgeon, piece, small bit

See also

• inte ett smack

Anagrams

• macks

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)