Flail vs Smash - What's the difference?
flail | smash |
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.
The sound of a violent impact; a violent striking together.
(British, colloquial) A traffic accident.
(colloquial, entertainment) Something very successful.
* 2012 , Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world'' (in ''The Daily Telegraph , 15 November 2012)[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/15/mumford-sons-biggest-band-world]
(tennis) A very hard overhead shot hit sharply downward.
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, date=July 3
, author=Piers Newbury
, title=Wimbledon 2011: Novak Djokovic beats Rafael Nadal in final
, work=BBC Sport
(colloquial, archaic) bankruptcy
To break (something brittle) violently.
* 1895 , , (The Time Machine) , Chapter X
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=28, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= To hit extremely hard.
(figuratively) To ruin completely and suddenly.
(figuratively) To defeat overwhelmingly.
(US) To deform through continuous pressure.
To be destroyed by being smashed.
(transitive, slang, vulgar, of a man) To have sexual intercourse with.
In lang=en terms the difference between flail and smash
is that flail is to move like a flail while smash is to be destroyed by being smashed.As nouns the difference between flail and smash
is that 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 while smash is the sound of a violent impact; a violent striking together.As verbs the difference between flail and smash
is that flail is to beat using a flail or similar implement while smash is to break (something brittle) violently.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.
Synonyms
* thrashSee also
* (wikipedia "flail") *smash
English
Noun
(smashes)- I could hear the screech of the brakes, then the horrible smash of cars colliding.
- The driver and two passengers were badly injured in the smash .
- This new show of mine is sure to be a smash .
- Soundcheck for the band, today, takes place at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It is late afternoon and while the arena's 17,000 outdoor seats are still empty the four members of Mumford & Sons – prospering British folk band, in the middle of a long tour of Australia, the US and the UK, their newly released album Babel a smash on all fronts – wander to centre stage.
- A smash may not be as pretty as a good half volley, but it can still win points.
citation, page= , passage=A Nadal forehand into the net gave Djokovic the set and the Spaniard appeared rattled, firing a smash over the baseline in a rare moment of promise at 30-30 at the start of the third.}}
Synonyms
* (sound of a violent impact ): crash * (colloquial: traffic accident ): crash * (colloquial: something very successful ): smash hitVerb
(es)- Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a strange, and for me, a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly enough I found here a far more unlikely substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that, by chance, I supposed had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first the stuff was paraffin wax, and smashed the jar accordingly. But the odor of camphor was unmistakable.
High and wet, passage=Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.