flicker

flicker¹ flutter, waver

Etymology

The verb meaning to flutter or waver is inherited from Middle English flikeren, inherited from Old English flicorian, also flicerian,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Proto-West Germanic *flikurōn.^[1] The OED describes the Old English verb as an imitative formation with the frequentative suffix -er, expressing a repeated quick movement like that of flacker but lighter.^[7][3][8][9] It is akin to Low German flickern and Dutch flikkeren,^{[5][6][10][11]} and probably to flacor (“flying, fluttering”),^{[12][6][13][14]} which has the cognates Middle Dutch flackeren (“to flap, flutter”), Middle High German vlackern (“to flicker”), German flackern and Old Norse flǫkra (“to flutter”).^{[12][6][13][14]} Klein thinks these verbs first meant to beat with the wings,^[13] and Barnhart, Partridge and Merriam-Webster compare Latin plangō (“to beat, strike”), Barnhart from Proto-Indo-European *plāg-.^[12][15][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of birds, to flutter, to flap the wings quickly and lightly: Old English flicorian, recorded about 1000.^{[12][3][6][5]}

Semantic evolution

In Middle English flikeren was used of a bird beating its wings or flitting about, of a fish moving its fins and of a banner flapping, and figuratively of wavering, being unreliable, and behaving frivolously or fondling someone.^[2][6] Barnhart finds the sense "to trifle" probably before 1200 in the Ancrene Riwle and "to waver" about 1300;^[12] Chaucer has doves flikerynge above Venus's head.^[9][16] The senses of caressing and of vacillating died out in the 18th and early 19th centuries.^[5] General fluttering and quivering is late Middle English,^[5][6] and Trench noted that the verb was once used of wings, quoting Golding's Ovid, though in his day it was said only of flames.^[17] The sense "to burn or shine unsteadily" first appears in Shakespeare's King Lear (1605) but became common only in the 19th century.^[12][3][9] Johnson (1755) still defined the verb as to flutter or play the wings.^[18] The noun followed in the 19th century: a wavering light from 1849, a flickering movement from 1857.^[7][3][12] Later it named a rapid variation in brightness (1892), the unsteady picture of early films and television (1899) and a similar variation in sound (1922),^[7] and in the plural flickers it was a colloquial word for films from 1927.^[7] In Scotland and northern and western dialects of England flicker meant to flutter or hover, of a bird.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English flicorian, to flutter.^[12]
• before 1200 – to trifle, behave frivolously, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[12]
• c. 1300 – to waver, vacillate.^[12]
• c. 1325 – adjective flicker, unsteadfast (obsolete).^[7]
• 1605 – to shine with a wavering light, in Shakespeare's King Lear.^[12][3]
• 1849 – noun, a wavering, unsteady light.^[7][3]
• 1857 – noun, a flickering movement, in Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days.^[7][12]
• 1892 – a rapid variation in brightness.^[7]
• 1899 – unsteadiness of a projected picture.^[7]
• 1927 – the flickers, films.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shine or burn with an unsteady, intermittent light: The lamp flickered and went out.^[20][14][5]
2. To move quickly to and fro; to quiver, flutter or vibrate.^[20][14][5]
3. To appear briefly, as an expression or feeling: A smile flickered across his face.^[5][14]
4. To make something flicker.^[20][5]
5. Of a bird, to flap the wings without flying; to flutter (now rare).^[14][5]
6. (obsolete) To make caressing movements or advances; to dally.^[14][5]
7. (obsolete) To waver or vacillate.^[5][2]

Noun

1. An unsteady or brief light or flame.^[20][14][7]
2. A quick quivering or fluttering movement.^[20][14][7]
3. A brief stirring of a feeling: a flicker of hope.^[14][5]
4. A visible variation in the brightness of a picture, as on a television screen.^[20][7]

Word family

• flickery
• flickeringly
• unflickering

flicker² woodpecker

Etymology

The woodpecker's name is said to imitate its call.^{[7][5][21][3][11]} Collins calls this only perhaps,^[20] and Merriam-Webster derives the name instead from flick and the suffix -er.^[14] Barnhart and Etymonline suggest that the bird was named for the white or black spots of its plumage, which seem to flicker as it flits from tree to tree,^[12][3] and Klein took it as "the striking bird", the same word as the verb.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A North American woodpecker: 1808, in American English.^[12][3] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1809,^[14] and the OED's first quotation is from Thoreau (1849).^[7]

Semantic evolution

The name covers the large North American woodpeckers of the genus Colaptes, above all the yellow-shafted or northern flicker; other species are named in combinations such as red-shafted flicker and gilded flicker.^[14][5]

Timeline

• 1808 – a North American woodpecker.^[12][3] Merriam-Webster gives 1809, and the OED quotes Thoreau in 1849.^[14][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several large North American woodpeckers of the genus Colaptes, especially the northern flicker.^[14][5][7]

Word family

• yellow-shafted flicker
• red-shafted flicker
• gilded flicker