Flinch vs Linch - What's the difference?
flinch | linch |
A reflexive jerking away.
To make a sudden, involuntary movement in response to a (usually negative) stimulus.
* John Locke
To dodge (a question), to avoid an unpleasant task or duty
To let the foot slip from a ball, when attempting to give a tight croquet.
A ledge, a terrace; a right-angled projection; a lynchet.
* 1910 , An introduction to the study of local history and antiquities , page 387:
* Peter James, ?Nick Thorpe, Ancient Mysteries (ISBN 0307414604), page 289:
As nouns the difference between flinch and linch
is that flinch is a reflexive jerking away while linch is a ledge, a terrace; a right-angled projection; a lynchet.As a verb flinch
is to make a sudden, involuntary movement in response to a (usually negative) stimulus.flinch
English
Noun
(es)- My eye doctor hates the flinch I have every time he tries to get near my eyes.
Verb
- A child, by a constant course of kindness, may be accustomed to bear very rough usage without flinching or complaining.
References
linch
English
Alternative forms
* lynchNoun
(es)- Within ten years linches' were formed; rain washed down the mould, some accident arrested it at a certain line, and a terrace was the result. Certainly the tendency is for the upper part of such a field to be denuded of mould, to be worked "to the bone," i.e. to the bare chalk or stone. But the first makers of ' linches had no choice. They had to farm on slopes or not at all,
- Indeed, a map of 1844 marks some of the lower terraces on the southern and eastern flanks of the hill as "Tor Linches," a linch or lynchet being a terrace of land wide enough to plot. (Some linches were deliberately Fashioned; others came about as the land flattened into platforms through being worked.)