flack
See also: Flack and fläck
English
WOTD – 7 October 2015
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /flæk/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -æk
- Homophone: flak
Etymology 1
From Middle English flacken (“to palpitate, flutter”), akin to Middle Dutch vlacken (“to flicker, flash, sparkle”), Danish flakke (“to wander”), Swedish flacka (“to rove, rove about, ramble”), Icelandic flakka (“to move”). Compare also Icelandic flaka (“to flap, hang loose”), Swedish flaxa (“to flap, flutter”).
Verb
flack (third-person singular simple present flacks, present participle flacking, simple past and past participle flacked)
- (intransitive, obsolete) To flutter; palpitate.
- (intransitive, Britain dialectal) To hang loosely; flag.
- (transitive, Britain dialectal) To beat by flapping.
Etymology 2
Unknown
Noun
flack (plural flacks)
- (Canada, US) A publicist, a publicity agent.
- 1998, Winston Smith, Art Crime: The Montage Art of Winston Smith, page 25:
- Edward Bernay, who was a consultant to the US Delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference which terminated the first World War (and who finally wound up as a flack for the United Fruit Company in Latin America), believed that propaganda and its covert marketing could effectively alter the will of the American public.
- 1999, Patricia Cornwell, The Southern Cross, page 233
- Thought you were flack," she said.
- "I'm not flack."
- "All right, P.R., a reporter, a novelist."
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Verb
flack (third-person singular simple present flacks, present participle flacking, simple past and past participle flacked)
- (Canada, US) To publicise, to promote.
- 1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld:
- [..] he told funny stories about his early days in the theater district, flacking shows up and down the street, but Klara wasn’t listening.
-
Etymology 3
Variant of flak.
Noun
flack (countable and uncountable, plural flacks)
- Alternative spelling of flak.
Further reading
- flack at OneLook Dictionary Search
- flack in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
Anagrams
- Falck