FLIRT, v. a., v. n. & n. s. From Sax. plicFLIRTATION, n. s. Scenian; Gothic fleira, flygra, to flutter. Skinner thinks it formed from the sound. To move any instrument backwards and forwards rapidly; putting a lady's face in quick motion; hence it has been applied to the state of the mind and feelings indicated by such movement. Hence a flirt is one who loves to attract notice; who holds out and employs this or any other signal for admiration. It also means a young woman forward and pert. The verb is likewise used in the sense of jeering and gibing.

Scurvy knave, I am none of his flirt gills; I am none of his skains mates. Shakspeare.

Permit some happier man

Flirts from his cart the mud in Walpole's face. Swift. Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune, Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth, Whose avarice all disbursements did importune, If History the grand liar ever saith

He stopt at once the passage of his wind, And the free soul to flitting air resigned. Dryden. Which fastened, by the foot, the flitting bird. Id. Æneid.

Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate! Changed to a bird, and sent to flit in air.

Pope.

He flitted to and fro a dancing light, Which all who saw it followed wrong or right. Byron.

FLITCH, n. s. Sax. Flicce; Dan. flycke; Fr. fleche, floche.-Skinner. Icel. flyche, probably from flaka (Goth. fla), to divide. The side of a hog salted and cured.

But heretofore 'twas thought a sumptuous feast, A salt dry flitch of bacon to prepare; On birthdays, festivals, or days of state,

If they had fresh meat, twas delicious fare.

Dryden's Juvenal. He sometimes accompanies the present with a flitch of bacon. Addison.

While he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook,
Cut out large slices to be frycd.
FLITTERMOUSE, n. s.

Swift. Vespertilio; from

flit and mouse. The bat; the winged mouse. FLITTING, n. s. Sax. Flit, scandal. An

offence; a fault; a failure; a desert.

Thou tellest my flittings, put my tears into thy bottle. Psalms.

FLIX, n. s. fur; soft hair. With his lolled tongue he faintly licks his prey; His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies: She trembling creeps upon the ground away, And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.

Corrupted from flax. Down;

Dryden.

FLOAT, v. n., v. a., n. s. & adj. Sax. pleoat; Fr. flotter. See FLEET. To swim on the surface of the water; to be buoyant in any fluid, whether water or air: to cover with water; as to float a meadow: to let water into dock: to

shorten,

FLIT, v. n. & adj. to fleet.

FLITTING.

To remove; to

be laid up. The noun is applied to any body so contrived or formed as to swim on the water.

The statue of Venus, glorious for to see, Was naked, fleeting in the large see.

Chaucer. Knightes Tale.

At last far off they many islandes spy,
On every side floting the floodes among :
Then said the knight, Lo! I the land descry:

Spenser. Faerie Queene.

For whan that richesse shineth bright,
Love recovereth ayen his light;
And whan it faileth he wol flit,

And as she greveth so greveth it.

Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose.

How oft do they [angels] their silver bowers leave,

To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant.

Spenser. Faerie Quecne.
His grudging ghost did strive,
With the frail flesh; at last it flitted is,
Whither the souls do die of men that live amiss.

Id

When the sea was calm all boats alike Shewed mastership in floating. Shakspeare. The hindrance to stay well is the extreme length of a ship, especially if she be floaty, and want sharpness of way forwards. Raleigh.

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large Lay floating many a rood.

Milton.

You will find this to be a very choice bait, sometimes casting a little of it into the place where your float swims. Walton.

What divine monsters, O ye gods, were these That float in air, and fly upon the seas! Dryden. A passage for the weary people make; With osier floats the standing water strow, Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow.

Id.

His rosy wreath was dropt not long before,
Born by the tide of wine, and floating on the floor.
Dryden.
Floating visions make not deep impressions enough
to leave in the mind clear, distinct, lasting ideas.
Locke.
Venice looks, at a distance, like a great town half
Roated by a deluge.
Addison on Italy.
Swift they descend, with wing to wing conjoined,
Stretch their broad plumes, and float upon the wind.
Pope.
Now smoaks with showers the misty mountain-
ground,

And flouted fields lie undistinguished round, Id.
Descending flames the dusky shrine illume,
Fire the wet wood, the sacred bull consume;
Winged from the sea the gathering mists arise,
And floating waters darken all the skies. Darwin.
When slowly floating down the azure skies
A crimson cloud flashed on his startled sight,
Whose skirts gay sparkling with unnumbered dyes,
Launched the long billowy trails of flickery light.
Beattie.

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float
Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation,
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?
You wise men don't know much of navigation.

Byron.

The floating robe around him folding
Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle-
With dread beheld-with gloom beholding
The rites that sanctify the pile.

Byron. The Bride of Abydos. FLOAT is also used for a quantity of timber bound together with rafters athwart, and put into a river to be conveyed down the stream; and even sometimes to carry burdens down a river.

FLOAT-BOARDs, boards fixed to water-wheels of under-shot mills, serving to receive the impulse of the stream, whereby the wheel is carried round. See MILL and WHEEL. It is no advantage to have too great a number of floatboards; because, when they are all struck by the water in the best manner that it can be brought to come against them, the sum of all the impulses will be but equal to the impulse made against one float-board at right angles, by all the water coming out of the penstock through the opening, so as to take place on the float-board. The best rule in this case is, to have just so many, that each of them may come out of the water as soon as possible, after it has received and acted with its full impulse. As to the length of the floatboard, it may be regulated according to the breadth of the mill. See MILL.

FLOAT-STONE, a sub-species of the indivisible quartz of Mohs., or spongiform quartz of Jameson. Color dirty white. In porous, massive, and tuberose forms, and dull internally. Fracture coarse earthy: feebly translucent on the edges. Soft, but its minute particles are as hard as quartz. Rather brittle. Feels meagre and rough, and emits a grating noise when the finger is drawn across it. Specific gravity 0:49 Its constituents are, silica 98, carbonate of lime 2. It occurs in crusting flint, or in imbedded masses in a secondary limestone at St. Ouen near Paris. FLOCK, n. s. & v. n. Sax. ploce; Goth. and Teut. flock; Dan. flok, a multitude, à Gr. Xoxos, a troop. A company; usually, a company of birds or beasts; sometimes of men; but especially

of sheep, as distinguished from herds, which are of oxen. To gather in crowds, or large numbers The heathen that had filed out of Judea came t Nicanor by flocks. 2 Mac. xiv. 14. A-morwe whan the day began to spring, Uprose our hoste and wos our aller cok, And gaderd us togeder in a flock, And forth we riden, a litel more than pas Unto the watering of Seint Thomas.

Chaucer. Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Even all the nation of unfortunate And fatall birds about them flocked were Such as by nature men abhorre and hate.

Spenser's Faerie Queens.

She that bath a heart of that fine frame,
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love when the rich golden shaft
Hath killed the flock of all affections else
That live in her.

Shakspeare. Twelfth Night. Many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and feet the time carelessly. Shakspeare.

Stilps, when the people flocked about him, and that one said, The people come wondering about you as if it were to see some strange beast. No, saith he, it is to see a man which Diogenes sought with his lanthorn at noon-day. Bacon.

The world's Great Light his lowly state hath blessed, And left his Heaven to be a shepherd base: Thousand sweet songs he to his pipe addressed: Swift rivers stood, beasts, trees, stones ran apace, And serpents flew to hear his softest strains; He fed his flock where rolling Jordan reigns; There took our rags, gave us his robes, and bore our pains. Fletcher's Purple Island. Russet lawns and fallows gray Milton. Where the nibbling flocks do stray. All these, and more, came flocking; but with looks Downcast and damp. Id. Paradise Lost. People do not flock to courts so much for their majesties' service, as for making their fortunes.

A house well-furnished shall be thine to keep, And, for a flock bed, I can shear my sheep. Dryden.

FLODDEN, FLODDON, OF FLOWDEN, a village of England, in Northumberland, on the Till, between the Glen and the Tweed, five miles north of Wooler. Near it the well-known battle of that name was fought, on the 9th September, 1513, between the Scots, under king James IV., and the English under the earl of Surrey. The command of the van was allotted to the earl of Huntley; the earls of Lennox and Argyle commanded the Highlanders under James; and the earls of Craw ford and Montrose led the body of reserve. The earl of Surrey gave the command of his van to his son, the lord admiral; his right wing was commanded by his other son, Sir Edward Howard; and his left by Sir Marmaduke Constable. The rear was commanded by the earl himself, lord Dacres, and Sir Edward Stanley. Unde. those leaders served the flower of all the nobility

and gentry then in England. Lord Hume served under the earls of Crawford and Monrose, and Hepburn earl of Bothwel was in the rear. The first motion of the English army was by the lord admiral, who suddenly wheeled to the right, and seized a pass at Milford, where he planted his artillery so as to command the most sloping part of the ascent where the Scots were drawn up; and it did great execution. The Scots had not foreseen this manoeuvre; and it put them into such disorder, that the earl of Huntley found it necessary to attack the lord admiral; which he did with so much fury that he drove him from his post; and the consequence must have been fatal to the English, had not his precipitate retreat been covered by some squadrons of horse under the lord Dacres, which gave the lord admiral an opportunity of rallying and new forming his men. The earl of Surrey now advanced to the front, so that the English army formed one continued line, which galled the Scots with perpetual discharges of their artillery and bows. The Highlanders, as usual, impatient to come to a close fight, and to share in the honor of the day, which they now thought their own, rushed down the declivity with their broad swords, but without order or discipline, and before the rest of the army, particularly the division under lord Hume, advanced to support them. Their impetuosity, however, made a considerable impression upon the main battle of the English; and, the king bringing up the earl of Bothwel's reserve, the battle became general and doubtful: but by this time the lord admiral, having again formed his men, came to the assistance of his father, and charged the division under the earls of Crawford and Montrose, who were marching up to support the Highlanders, among whom the king and his attendants were now fighting on foot; while Stanley, making a circuit round the hill, attacked the Highlanders in the rear. Crawford and Montrose, not being seconded by the Humes, were routed; and thus all that part of the Scottish army which was engaged under their king, was completely surrounded by the division of the English under Surrey, Stanley, and the lord admiral. In this terrible situation, James acted with a coolness not common to his temper. He drew up his men in a circular form, and their valor more than once opened the ranks of the English, or obliged them to stand aloof, and again have recourse to their bows and artillery. The chief

of the Scottish nobility made fresh attempts to prevail with James to make his escape while it was practicable; but he obstinately continued the fight. He saw the earls of Montrose, Crawford, Argyle, and Lennox, fall by his side, with the bravest of his men lying dead on the spot; and, darkness now coming on, he himself was killed by an unknown hand. The English were ignorant of the victory they had gained; and had actually retreated from the field of battle, with a design of renewing it next morning. This disaster was evidently owing to the romantic disposition of the king, and to the want of discipline among his soldiers; though some writers have ascribed it to the treachery of lord Hume. Many of James's domestics knew and

mourned over his body; and it appeared that he had received two mortal wounds, one through the trunk with an arrow, and the other on the head with a ball. His coat of armour was presented to queen Catharine, who informed her husband, then in France, of the victory over the Scots. The loss on both sides in this engagement is far from being ascertained; though Polydore Virgil, who lived at the time, mentions the loss of the English at 5000, and that of the Scots at 10,000.

FLOG, v.a. Lat. flagrum. To lash; to whip; to chastise.

The schoolmaster's joy is to flog.

FLOOD, n. s. & v. a. Į

FLOOD GATE.

Gay.

Saxon, Flod; from Sax. Flopan, to flow; Goth. and Swed. flod; Belg. vloed; Fr. flot. A body of water; the sea; a river; a deluge; an inundation; flow; flux; as opposed to ebb and reflux: the swelling of a river by rain, or any other cause. In medical science, catamenia. The verb signifies to deluge; to cover with water. Floodgate is an artificial means of admitting, or excluding, water at pleasure: it is placed across a river, or a water-course, for this. purpose; used generally, for whatever impedes, or introduces, water, or any other fluid: it is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense.

And whanne he was putt out in the flood, the doughtir of Pharao took him up and norischide him Wiclif. Dedis.

into hir a sone.

Wherefore, Lord Phoebus, this is my request,
(Do this miracle; or do min herte brest),
Which in the signe shal be of the Leon,
That now next at this opposition
As preyeth hire so gret a flood to bring,
That five fadome at the lest, it overspring
The highest rock in Armorike Bretaigne,
And let this flood enduren yeres twaine.

Chaucer. The Frankeleines Tale.

'Like a great water-flood that tombling low, From the high mountaines, threates to overthrow, With suddein fury, all the fertile playne, And the sad husbandman's long hope doth throw Adowne the streame, and all his vowes make vayne; Nor bounds, nor banks, his headlong usine may Spenser's Faerie Queene.

sustayne.

Whose spacious barns groan with increasing store, And whirling flails disjoint the cracking floor. Gay. Who fell as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture, And roared out, as he writhed his native mud in, Unto his nearest follower or henchman,

Oh Jack! I'm floored by that ere bloody Frenchman.' Byron.

FLOOR, in building. Floors are of several sorts; some of earth, some of brick, others of stone, of boards, &c. See PAVEMENT. Carpenters never floor their rooms with boards till the carcase is set up, and also enclosed with walls, lest the weather should injure the flooring. Yet they generally rough-plane their boards for flooring before they begin any thing else about the building, that they may set them by to dry and season, which is done in the most careful manner. The best wood for flooring is the fine yellow deal well seasoned, which when laid will keep its color for a long while; whereas the white sort becomes black by often washing, and looks very bad. The joints of the boards are commonly made plain so as to touch each other only but when the stuff is not quite dry, and the boards shrink, the water runs through them whenever the floor is washed, and injures the ceiling underneath. For this reason they are made with feather edges, so as to cover each other about half an inch, sometimes they are made with grooves and tenons; and sometimes the joints are made with dove-tails; in which case the lower edge is nailed down and the next drove into it, so that the nails are concealed. The manner of measuring floors is by squares of ten feet on each side, so that taking the length and breadth, and multiplying them together and cutting off two decimals, the content of a floor in square will be given. Thus 18 by 16 gives 288, or 2 square and 88 decimal parts.

:

FLOOR OF A SHIP, strictly taken, is only so much of her bottom as she rests on when a-ground. Such ships as have long, and withal broad floors, lie on the ground with most security and are not apt to heel, or tilt on one side; whereas others, which are narrow in the floor, or, in the sea phrase, craned by the ground, cannot be grounded without danger of being overturned.

FLOORS, EARTHEN, are commonly made of loam, and sometimes, especially to make malt on, of lime, and brooksand, and gun-dust, or anvil-dust from the forge. Ox blood and fine clay tempered together, Sir Hugh Plat says, make the finest floors. The manner of making earthen floors for plain country habitations is as follows:-Take two-thirds of lime, and one of coal ashes well sifted, with a small quantity of loam clay; mix the whole together, and temper it well with water, making it up into a heap; let it lie a week or ten days and then temper it over again. After this, heap it up for three or four days, and repeat the tempering very high, till it becomes smooth, yielding, tough, and gluey. The ground being then levelled, lay the floor therewith about two and a half or three inches thick, making it smooth with a trowel: the hotter the season is, the better; and, when it is thoroughly dried, it will make the best floor, especially for malt-houses. Those who would have their floors look better, let them take lime

made of rag-stones, well tempered with whites of eggs, covering the floor about half an inch thick with it, before the under flooring is too dry. If this be well done, and thoroughly dried, it will look, when rubbed with a little oil, as transparent as metal or glass. In farmers' houses, floors of this nature are made of stucco, or of plaster of Paris, beaten and sifted, and mixed with other ingredients.

FLOOR TIMBERS, in a ship, are those parts of a ship's timbers which are placed immediately across the keel, and upon which the bottom of a ship is framed; to these the upper parts of the timbers are united, being only a continuation of floor timbers upwards.

FLOP, v. a. From flap. To clap the wings with noise; to play with any noisy motion of a broad body,

A blackbird was frighted almost to death with a L'Estrange.

huge flopping kite that she saw over her head.

FLORA, the reputed goddess of flowers, was, according to Lactantius, originally a lady of pleasure, who, having gained large sums of money by prostitution, made the Roman people her heir, on condition that certain games called Floralia might be annually celebrated on her birth-day. Some time afterwards, however, such a foundation appearing unworthy the majesty of the Roman people, the senate, to ennoble the ceremony, converted Flora into a goddess, whom they supposed to preside over flowers; and so made it a part of religion to render her propitious, that it might be well with their gardens, vineyards, &c. But Vossius, De Idolol. lib. i. c. 12, will not allow the goddess Flora to have been a courtezan, but rather a Sabine deity, and thinks her worship commenced under Romulus. His reason is, that Varro, in his fourth book of the Latin tongue, ranks Flora among the deities to whom Tatius, king of the Sabines, offered up vows before he joined battle with the Romans. And from another passage in Varro it appears, that there were priests of Flora, with sacrifices, &c., as early as the times of Romulus and Numa. The goddess Flora was, according to the poets, the wife of Zephyrus. Her image in the temple of Castor and Pollux was dressed in a close habit, and she held in her hands the flowers of peas and beans.

FLORA, among botanists, is used for a catalogue of the plants and trees growing spontaneously in any particular country or district. Thus Flora Scotica, and Flora Suecica, are the titles of works describing the plants growing in Scotland and Sweden.

FLORAC, a town of France, in the department of Lozere, near the Tarn; thirteen miles and a half south of Mende. Long. 18° 0' E. of Ferro, lat. 44° 19′ N.

FLORAL, adj. FLORET, n. s. FLORID, adj. FLORID'ITY, n. s. FLOR IDNESS, n. s. FLORIFEROUS, adj. FLORIST.

All from Lat. flos, floris, à Gr. plo, a flower. Floral is relating to Flora; or flowers: florid(Fr. Alleurette) a small or imperfect flower: florid, Fr. floride Lat. floridus; productive of flowers; covered with flowers; flushed with