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flick

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Pronunciation

flick1 light blow, jerk

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

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)