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Etymology and origin of the English word flick

Pronunciation

flick1 light blow, jerk

Confidence
Established
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
1447 Osbern Bokenham, Legends of Holy Women

Etymology

The light blow is of imitative origin,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] probably imitating the sound of a light stroke with a whip.[3][10] The OED compares French flicflac (“the cracking of a whip”),[2][7] and the Oxford Dictionary of English calls it symbolic, since English words that begin with the same two letters often denote a sudden movement.[11] Partridge relates it to fleck.[12] The verb is formed from the noun.[2][3][10][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the phrase not worth a flykke, worthless, in Bokenham's Legends of Holy Women (1447),[2][10][3] the earliest record of the noun meaning a light blow;[2][3] Barnhart dates the text to about 1445 and finds the form flicke in 1591.[10]

Semantic evolution

The noun was at first a light blow, especially with something pliant such as a whip, or with a fingernail.[2][4] In the 19th century it widened to the sound of such a blow (1844), something thrown off with a jerk, a dash or splash (1847), and any sudden movement (1866).[2] The verb is not recorded before 1816, when Peacock used it in Headlong Hall for throwing something off with a jerk;[2][10][3] striking lightly followed in 1839, in Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby,[2] or 1838 in Etymonline.[3] In cricket the noun and verb were used for a quick turn of the wrist from 1897.[2][3] The Shorter Oxford records the intransitive verb, as in turning over the pages of a book quickly, from the mid 19th century.[4]

Timeline

  • 1447 – noun, a light blow, in not worth a flykke.[2][10]
  • 1816 – verb, to throw off with a jerk.[2][10][3]
  • 1839 – to strike lightly, as with a whip.[2]
  • 1844 – the sound of a light blow.[2]
  • 1846 – to remove with a light stroke.[2]
  • 1847 – something thrown off with a jerk, a dash.[2]
  • 1853 – to move with quick vibrations.[2]
  • 1866 – any sudden movement, a jerk.[2]
  • 1897 – in cricket, a quick turn of the wrist.[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A light, quick stroke or blow, as with a whip or the finger.[8][7][2]
  2. A quick, sudden movement, especially of the wrist, as in striking a ball.[8][2][4]
  3. The light, sharp sound made by such a stroke.[7][8][2]
  4. A quick look through something: She had a flick through the brochure.[7]

Verb

  1. To strike or touch lightly with a quick, jerky movement.[8][7][2]
  2. To remove or send something with such a movement: He flicked the crumbs off his sleeve.[8][7][2]
  3. To move, or make something move, quickly and jerkily.[7][8][4]
  4. To turn on or off with a switch.[8]
  5. flick through: to look through pages quickly or idly.[7][4]
  6. To snap the fingers.[7][4]

Word family

  • flick knife

flick2 film

Confidence
Established
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1926 Edgar Wallace, The Square Emerald

Etymology

The film is a shortening of flicker,[8][9][13][14] after the flickering look of early films.[3] Onions links it to the use of flicker in compounds naming a cinema.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A film, and in the plural the cinema: 1926, in Edgar Wallace's The Square Emerald.[2][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The plural flickers was used in the same sense from 1927.[2] The Shorter Oxford labels the word slang and the OED colloquial.[4][2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1925–30.[13]

Timeline

  • 1926 – a film; in the plural, the cinema.[2][8][3]
  • 1927 – flickers, in the same sense.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (informal) A film or movie: a horror flick.[8][2][4]
  2. the flicks (chiefly British, dated): the cinema.[4][8][2]

Word family

  • skin flick
  • flicker
  • fleck

Usage notes

Several dialect words are also spelled flick: the fur of a hare or rabbit, a variant of flix,[2][4][8] and a flitch of bacon or the fat around a pig's kidney.[8][4][15] Criminals' slang had flick, to cut, from the late 17th to the mid 19th century.[4][8]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ a b Onions, C. T., ed. (1966), The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
Cite this entry

“Flick.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/flick. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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