Flail Definition (Crook and Flail, Flails, Weapon, Threshing) @ Threshed.com

a flail (weapon)

From Latin flagellum 'whip', the diminutive of flagrum "whip, scourge"

flail (plural flails)

A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.
A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain.

1631 — John Milton, L'Allegro

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end;
1816 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail
1842 — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp

On him alone the curse of Cain Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain, And struck him to the earth!
1879 — Henry George, Progress and Poverty, ch V

If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher...

flail (third-person singular simple present flails, present participle flailing, simple past and past participle flailed)

1937 — H. P. Lovecraft, The Evil Clergyman

He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.

to wave or swing vigorously

to thresh

Related Terms:	Flails	Weapon	Crook and Flail	Gardening Tools
	Canoe	Manual	Ancient Egypt	Agricultural Tools
	Flail	Farmers	Threshing	Minnesota Wild Rice
	Wood	Weapons	Nunchaku	Encyclop Dia Britannica
	Rice	Egyptian	Diameter	Agricultural Uses See Also Flail Weapon

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