flisk

• IPA^(key): /flɪsk/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Rhymes: -ɪsk

flisk (plural flisks)

1. (obsolete, Scotland) A caper; a spring; a whim.
2. A comb with large teeth.

flisk (third-person singular simple present flisks, present participle flisking, simple past and past participle flisked)

1. (Scotland, Northern England) To frisk; to skip; to caper; to move quickly or restlessly.
   • 1579, Stephen Gosson, The Schoole of Abuse:

     flit away the he flisking flies.

   • 1791, John Learmont, Poems, Pastoral, Satirical, Tragic, and Comic, page 40:

     She flisked past me down the dale, / And, ah ! her cheek was painted pale " And wild , as is the wintry gale " That whistles thro ' the glade . " Three times I wander'd round the height , " My little flock to find , " I saw her wrath […]

   • 1878, William Nicholson, The poetical works of William Nicholson, with a memoir by M. McL. Harper, page 125:

     ... elves and fairies flisk a jig in, To waning moon:

2. (Scotland, Northern England) To flick or sprinkle (with or as if with water).
   • 1889, Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, page 93:

     'The wind got up east, and sent us a flisking rain.' Marianne Spry.—1888. S. B. G. To flisk is to sprinkle with fine spray; […]

   • 1990, Margery Forester, Rapid Falcons, →ISBN, page 73:

     […] from everyone she had ever known, it seemed, except Jess who was out in his caped smock and leggings in a flisking rain, swearing […]

   • 1997, Marly Youmans, Catherwood, Harper Perennial, →ISBN, page 84:

     Streams and rivers in York could be wild and whimsical, drowning […] Cath stood on shore, her cloak heavy and damp. Flisked with water.

• “flisk”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• filks