Frail vs Flail - What's the difference?
frail | flail |
Easily broken; mentally or physically fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm.
Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; unchaste.
A basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins.
The quantity of raisins contained in a frail.
A rush for weaving baskets.
(dated, slang) A girl.
* 1931 , (Cab Calloway) / (Irving Mills), ‘Minnie the Moocher’:
* 1933 , , , edition 1, Book 2, Chapter XXII:
* 1939 , (Raymond Chandler), The Big Sleep , Penguin 2011, p. 148:
* 1941 , Preston Sturges, '', published in ''Five Screenplays , ISBN 0-520-05442-4, page 77:
To play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail.
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.
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end; * 1816 — *: Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail * 1842 — *: On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth! * 1879 — , 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... To beat using a flail or similar implement.
To wave or swing vigorously
*
* 1937 , ,
To thresh.
To move like a flail.
As nouns the difference between frail and flail
is that frail is a basket made of rushes, used chiefly for containing figs and raisins while flail is 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.As verbs the difference between frail and flail
is that frail is to play a stringed instrument, usually a banjo, by picking with the back of a fingernail while flail is to beat using a flail or similar implement.As an adjective frail
is easily broken; mentally or physically fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm.frail
English
Adjective
(er)Noun
(en noun)- She was the roughest, toughest frail , but Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.
- There were five people in the Quirinal bar after dinner, a high-class Italian frail who sat on a stool making persistent conversation against the bartender's bored: “Si ... Si ... Si,” a light, snobbish Egyptian who was lonely but chary of the woman, and the two Americans.
- ‘She's pickin' 'em tonight, right on the nose,’ he said. ‘That tall black-headed frail .’
- Sullivan, the girl and the butler get to the ground. The girl wears a turtle-neck sweater, a cap slightly sideways, a torn coat, turned-up pants and sneakers.
- SULLIVAN Why don't you go back with the car... You look about as much like a boy as .
- THE GIRL All right, they'll think I'm your frail .
References
*Verb
(en verb)Anagrams
*flail
English
Noun
(en noun)Quotations
* 1631 — *: When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end; * 1816 — *: Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail * 1842 — *: On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth! * 1879 — , 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...
Coordinate terms
*(weapon) nunchakuVerb
(en verb)- He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.
- He was flailing wildly, but didn't land a blow.