This man, a certain twofold fortune (as the poets faine) carrying with her flight-wings, shewed unto the world one while a bountifull benefactor and advauncer of his friends to great fortunes, otherwhiles againe a vengible wayt-layer. FLIM-FLAM; a reduplication of flam, meaning the same. An imposition, a lie. This word was not originally in Johnson, but has been introduced by Todd. Holland's Ammianus Marcellinus, 1609. This is a pretty flim-flam. B. & Fl. Little Fr. L., act ii. Ozell's Rabelais, Prol. to B. II, vol. ii, p. iv. In his Catalogue of Imaginary Books, he introduces also "the flim-flams of the law." Ibid., vol. ii, p. 50. Affirming things which babies would scarce beleeve; and all the magpies in a countrie would hardly vouchsafe to chatter such foolish flim-flams as they do. Hosp. of Inc. Fooles, p. 3. An ingenious and amusing modern book was entitled Flim-flams; but the author seems to mean by it, Satires. He coins also the verb to flim-flam, for to satirise. See Brit. Crit., vol. xxvii, p. 207. +They with a courtly tricke, or a flim-flam, Do nod at me, whilst I the noddy am. Taylor's Workes, 1630. +And sit with patience an hour by the heels To learn the non-sence of the constables. Such jig-like flim-flams being got to make The rabble laugh and nut-cracking forsake. Randolph's Poems, 1643. +They took their leaves of the Palatine, telling him a hundred stories and flim-flams of their veneration for his person, and their readiness to serve his interests. The Pagan Prince, 1690. +I wil not be troubled, colonel, with his meanings, if he do not marry her this very evening (for I'le ha' none of his flim-flams and his may-be's. Cowley's Cutter of Coleman Street, 1663. +FLIMMERS. Seems in the following passage to mean common people. But rurall flimmers and other of our sort, Chances, iii, 1. The gilly-flower, from the resemblance of its name to the word gill-flirt, was considered as an emblem of falsehood. Shakespeare says, "some call them nature's bastards." Winter's T., iv, 3. See the note there. More anciently they were called gillofers (see Langham, Gard. of Health, p. 281), and are oddly enough, though very truly, derived from caryophyllum; for from that word is formed giroflée, Fr. Whence gillofer, and, lastly, gillyflower. Dr. Johnson hesitates between that etymology and the popular deduction of the word from Julyflower, which in truth deserves no attention. Gilly-flower meant originally a pink. To FLISK. To skip. same as FISK. Perhaps the Were fannes, and flappes of feathers fond, "Gosson's Pleasant Quippes, 1596. To FLIT. To fly or fleet away. For on a sandie hill, that still did flitt Alas, that cannot be, for he is flit FLITCHIN. A flitch of bacon. Fower flitchins of bacon in the chimney. MS. Inventory of Goods, 1658. FLITTER-MOUSE. See FLICKER MOUSE. FLIX. The flux, a well-known disorder. What with the burning feaver, and the flixe, Of sixtie men there scant returned sixe. Harringt. Ariosto, xxxiii, 13. The father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flix. Acts, xxviii, 8, in the authorised version. The change to flux was tacitly made, like many others of the same kind, early in the last century. See Grubb's famous ballad of Honi soit qui mal y pense, for the situation to which St. George reduced the dragon. †To FLOCK. To crowd. Though in the morning I began to goe, That make what haste I could, the sunne was set, +FLOCKLINGS. Sheep. But she takes not so much for curing of a thousand mortal people, as I have spent in turpentine and tarre to keep my flocklings cleanly in a spring-time. Brome's Queen and Concubine, 1659. Sediment. +FLOCKS. Not to leave anie flockes in the bottome of the cup. FLORENTINE. A kind of made dish, for which there are three curious receipts in May's Accomplished Cook, pp. 259, 260, and 261. Coles says, "Florentine, a made dish, torta;" but in the other part of his dictionary he renders torta, a cracknell." One author says that custards were called Florentines; but he is not supported by others. I went to Florence, from whence we have the art of making custards, which are therefore called Florentines. Wit's Interpreter, p. 23. If stealing custards, tarts, and Florentines, By some late statute be created treason. B. & Fl. Woman Hater, v, 1. The last editor, Mr. Weber, says it is a kind of pie, differing from a pasty, in having no crust beneath the meat. A veal Florentine is a dish well known in ancient Scottish cookery." Dr. Jamieson confirms this, describing it thus: "a kind of pie; properly meat baked in a plate, with a cover of paste." May's Florentines are made. with or without paste. [The following receipts are given for making Florentines.] +How to make a Florentine.-Take the kidney of a loyn of veal, or the wing of a capon, or the leg of a rabbet, mince any of these small, with the kidney of a loyn of mutton, if it be not fat enough, then season it with cloves, mace, nutmegs, and sugar, cream, currans, eggs, and rose-water, mingle these four together and put them into a dish between two sheets of paste, then close it, and cut the paste round by the brim of the dish, then cut it round about like virginal keys, then turn up one, and let the other lie. A True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1676, p. 98. +To make a Florendine, or dish without paste, or on paste. Take a leg of mutton or veal, shave it into thin slices, and mingle it with some sweet herbs, as sweet marjoram, thyme, savory, parsley, and rosemary, being minced very small, a clove of garlick, some beaten nutmeg, pepper, a minced onion, some grated manchet, and three or four yolks of raw eggs, mix all together, with a little salt, some thin slices of interlarded bacon, and some oister-liquor, lay the meat round the dish on a sheet of paste, or in the dish without paste, bake it, and being baked, stick bay leaves round the dish. Queen's Royal Cookery, 1713. FLORENTIUS. A knight, whose story is related in the first book of Gower's Confessio Amantis. He bound himself to marry a deformed hag, provided she taught him the solution of a riddle, on which his life depended. She is described as being Tam. Shr., i, 2. +FLOURISH. The condition of flourishing. Present Rome may be said to be but the monument of Rome pass'd, when she was in that flourish that saint Austin desired to see her in; she who tam'd the world, tam'd her self at last, and falling under her own weight, fell to be a prey to Time. Howell's Familiar Letters, 1650. FLOTE. Sea or waves. Saxon. The same as fleet. [Explained a wave by Minsheu. It is the Fr. flot, from fluctus, still used in the same sense.] They all have met again, Temp., 1, 2. +FLUMMERY. jelly. Taylor's Workes, 1630. To make flummery that will thicken sauce excellently, instead of grated bread or flower; take a good handful of beaten oat-meal, put it into a quart of water, and boil it half away, then strain it through a sieve; let it stand by you for use, it is much better than grated bread or flower, or in most cases than eggs. Lupton's Thousand Notable Things. To make flummery.-Take half a peck of wheat-bran that has not been over-much boulted or sifted, let it soak three or four days in two gallons of water, then strain out the liquid part, pressing it hard; boil it to the consumption of a third part, so that when it cools it will be like a jelly, and keep long. When you heat any of it, season it with sugar, and a little rose or orange-flower-water, and add a little cream or milk, and it will be very pleasant and nourishing. The Way to get Wealth, 1714. +FLUNDERING, ? floundering. Report (which our moderners clepe flundring fame) +FLURN. To sneer. And for those abortive births slipp'd from my brain which can carry neither worth nor weight in the scale of this pregnant age, so fraught and furnish'd with variety of gallant pieces and performances of the choicest of writers, give me leave to flurn at them, as the poor excrescencies of nature, which rather blemish than adorn the structure of a well-composed body. Fletcher's Poems, Pref. +FLURT. A satirical jesture. And must these smiling roses entertain +FLURTING. Scorning? First, know I have here the flurting feather, and have FLUSH. Ripe, full. The borders maritime Now the time is flush, FLUXIVE. Flowing with moisture. A Lover's Complaint, Suppl. to Sh., i, 743. FLY. A familiar spirit. Apparently a To rifle with at horses, and win cups. The pretended necromancer, Subtle, afterwards says, If I do give him a familiar, Give you him all you play for; never set him, He is instructed afterwards how to keep and feed his fly. See act v, sc. 2. Fly also is used for a parasite: Courtiers have flies That buzz all news unto them. Massing. Virg. Mart., ii, 2. So also Ben Jonson, who by Mosca means the same; as well as his Fly, in the play of the Light Heart. The allusion is classical. +FLY. Phrase. See preceding article. Ant. and Cl., i, 4. +FLY-FLAP. An implement for driving When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong, To FLUSH. To fly out suddenly, as a So flushing from one spray unto another, It is still retained as a sporting term: Song. Lovelace's Lucasta, 1619. A flie-flap wherewith to chase them away from blowing Withals' Dictionarie, ed. 1608, p. 207. Hung o're your eyes like flie-flaps. Randolph's Jealous Lovers, 1646. +FLYING-COACHES. The machines in fairs by which people are carried round in a verticle circle. Now comes Bartholomew-tide, a universal holiday time in London, if not all over the bills of mortality; the scholars break up for about a fortnight, because it is customary; and they are very easy under the affliction. The lawyers break up for almost five months, because it is the long vacation. The apprentices go to the fair because their masters give them leave, and the masters go, because they take leave; while the flying-coaches are planted in proper places, and like the fickle wheel of fortune, toss their inhabitants into all the varieties of life. Now at the top, and with one turn at the bottom, and then to add to their affliction ride backwards, but then their next turn is to rise to the top, and ride forwards. The FOBEDAYS. Apparently, mysteries or feasts. Likewise Titus Livy writeth, that in the solemnization time of the Bacchanalian fobedays at Rome, &c. Rabelais, Engl., B. iii, ch. 45. Ozell says upon this, "If this be a Scotch word for holydays, be it so." The word, therefore, was sir F. Urquhart's; but Dr. Jamieson has it not. Perhaps it is from fow; quasi, drunken days. The original has only "es Bacchanales." +FOD. As we for Saunders death have cause in fods of teares to saile. Paradyse of Dayntie Devises, 1576. †To FODDER. To supply with food. I'll tell thee plainly, such doe entertaine mee, Taylor's Workes, 1630. Fog-cheeses, in Yorkshire, are such as are made from this latter grass, as eddish-cheeses, in some other counties. To FOG. To hunt in a servile manner; whence pettifogger; not from petit vogue, as Grose conjectures; which words, probably, were never current in England. A soldier says to a lawyer, in reproach, Wer't not for us, thou swad (quoth he) 'tis pity. Counter-Scuffle, in Dryd. Misc., iii, p. 340. +P. Were I not afraid of my father, I could tell him that which would satisfie him in this point well enough. S. Hah, fogging knave. Terence in English, 1614. +FOGGER. A cheat, a flatterer. Hence pettifogger. I shall be exclaimed upon to be a beggerly fogger, Fat; bloated. She was nor dwarfe-like statur'd, nor too tall, Heywood's Troia Britanica, 1609. Travelling on the way, the weather being extreame hot and the horse no lesse fat and foggie with over much former ease, fell downe and died. To FODE OUT, or FODE FORTH, +FOGGY. In this meane time with words he foded out In the original: St. 65. Il traditor intanto dar parole Fatto gli avea, sin che i cavalli, &c. But the king alter'd his minde, and foded him foorth with faire words, the space of a year or more. Danet's Commines, sign. Q 1. Knoweyng perfectly that there he should bee foded furth with argumentes so long that he should be in a manner wery. Stow's Annals, Hen. VIII, p. 183. FOEMAN. A foe. Perhaps not altogether obsolete; once very common. Desyr'd of forreine foemen to be known. Spens. F. Q., I, vi, 29. He presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. 2 Hen. IV, iii, 2. FOG. Rank strong grass. Used also in the northern counties, for latter grass. Ray defines it, "long grass, remaining in pastures till winter;" which agrees with Du Cange's definition of fogagium. One with another they would lie and play, The thick and well grown fog doth matt my smoother To FOIL. To trample. Probably from fouler, Fr. Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614. Whom he did all to peeces breake, and foyle In filthy durt, and left so in the loathely soyle. Spens. F. Q., V, xi, 33. But the third she beare tooke overthrew, and foiled under hir feete. Danet's Commines, sign. M 2. To FOIN. To push, in fencing. Skinner derives it from poindre, to prick; Junius, from poveúw; both very improbably. It seems to be more likely to have arisen from fouiner, to push for eels with a spear; which Menage says the Flemings used, having formed it from fouine, the harpoon or trident with which it was done, that word being itself from fuscina, Latin. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse, Rogero never foynd, and seldom strake But flatling. Harringt. Ariost., xl, 78. She lets us fight; If we had no more wit, we might foin in earnest. Shirley's Imposture, iv, p. 47. use in Chaucer's The word was in time. A FOIN. A push of the sword or spear. First six foines with hand speares. slades. Drayt. Pol., 13, p. 924. Holingsh., p. 833. That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foyson. Meas. for M., i, 5. This passage has been thought corrupt; the word that most offends me in it, is seedness, which I would change to seeding. Blossoming time, I presume, means summer; but, without more alteration, the allusion is incorrectly applied. · . Scotland has foysons to fill up your will Macb., iv, 3. As our modern editions of Shakespeare undertake to give a corrected orthography, it is foolish that this word should in these places be spelt with y. Fifteene hundred men, and great foison of vittels. Holingsh., p. 1613. As the good seeds sowen in fruitful soil Bring forth foyson when barren doth them spoil. Puttenham's Art of Poetry. Cartwright, whose play of the Ordinary was published in 1651, puts foison into the mouth of Moth, the antiquary, as an obsolete word, which in Shakespeare's time it certainly was not. FOIST. A barge, or pinnace. fuste, Dutch and French. From Yet one day in the year, for sweet 'tis voic'd, And that is when it is the lord mayor's foist. B. Jons. Epig., 134; On the Famous Voyage, p. 287. These are things that will not strike their topsails to a foist; and let a man of war, an Argosy, hull, and cry cockles. Philaster, v, p. 165. That is, "They will not yield to an inferior vessel, and suffer a man of war, in which they are, to lie inactive, and in base traffic." In an old poem, called The Shippe of Even so the will and fansie vayne of man, Nor taking heede his fleshly foyst to guide, Full fraught with sin and care of worldly pelfe, Commandment was given to the haberdashers, of which craft the maior was, that they should prepare a barge for the bachelors, with a master, and a foyste, garnished with banners, like as they use when the maior is presented at Westmr. Nich. Prog. of Eliz., I, p. 1. It fortuned that the other fregate of Moores, that had founde and taken Fineo, met with this other foiste, or galleie, wherein Fiacuma was. Makes no account of weather, winde, or tide. Riche, Farew. to Militarie Profession, 1581. See GALLEYFOIST. Foist meant also a sharper, and is, To perhaps, derived from to foist, in the sense of to thrust in improperly, which is said to be from fausser, French. Prate again, as you like this, you whoreson foist, you. You'll controll the point, you? B. Jons. Every Man in his Humour, iv, 7. This brave fellow is no better than a foist. Foist! what is that? A diver with two fingers; a pickpocket; all his train study the figging law, that's to say cutting of purses and foisting. Roaring Girl, O. Pl., vi, 113. There is enough about foysts in R. Greene's Theeves falling out, &c., Harl. Misc., viii, p. 382, &c. Thus also foister: When facing foisters fit for Tiburne fraies, The Newe Metamorphosis, i, 17, 1600, MS. FOIST. To cheat. From the above. Thou cogging, Base, foysting lawyer, that dost set tifogging. FOISTING-HOUND, or CUR. A small dog, of the lap-dog kind. A stinking hound. And alledging urgent excuses for my stay behind, part +FOGUE. Passion; fury. (Fr.) The term occurs in the Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, 1644. In FOLIO. style. In abundance, in a great The flint, the stake, the stone in folio flew, Anger makes all things weapons when 'tis heat. Fanshaw's Lus., 1, 91. FOLIOT, from the Italian, Folletto, or the French, Follet. An imaginary demon, supposed to be harmless. Another sort of these there are, which frequent forlorn houses, which the Italians call Foliots, [but N. B. they have nothing nearer than Folletto] most part innoxious, Cardan holds; they will make strange noyses in the night, howle sometimes pittifully, and then laugh again, cause great flame and sudden lights, fling stones, rattle chains, shave men, open doores and shut them, fling down platters, stooles, chests |