▪ I. filly, n.
(ˈfɪlɪ)
Forms: α. 4 (in Comb.), 6 fely, (6 felee, felly), 5–8 fillie, (6 file, fille, fyllye, 8 filley), 6– filly. β. 7 philly.
[? a. ON. fylja wk. fem.:—*fuljôn-, f. ful-, fol-: see foal.]
1. A young mare, a female foal.
| ? a 1400 Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.) I. 51 Atter and foxe, fillie, mare alsoe. 1525 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) 206 To Thomas Milner, hir sone, a file with a white foite. a 1641 Suckling Answ. to Let. Wks. (1696) 99/2 An unback'd Filly may by chance give thee a fall. 1709 Lond. Gaz. No. 4591/4 Stoln or stray'd..a black Fillie, two years old. 1848 Kingsley Saint's Trag. iii. iii. 93 What's good for the filly, is good for the mare, say I. |
b. to slip her filly: transf. of a woman, to miscarry.
| 1665 Pepys Diary 31 Mar., My Lady Castlemaine is sick again—people think, slipping her filly. |
2. transf. Applied to a young lively girl.
| 1616 Beaum. & Fl. Scornful Lady iii. i, A skittish filly will be your fortune, Welford. 1668 Sedley Mulb. Gard. i. i, I believe nobody will be very fond of a Hide-Park Filly for a Wife. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 211 ¶9, I am joined in Wedlock for my Sins to one of those Fillies who are described in the old Poet. 1849 Miss Mulock Ogilvies l. (1875) 390 Katharine's a young filly that will neither be led nor driven. 1881 Besant & Rice Chapl. of Fleet I. 41 You are but a filly yet. |
3. attrib. and Comb., as filly-foal; † filly-stag, a filly foal.
| 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §68 It is a horse foole, bycause a horse gate it, though it be a *felly fole. 1884 W. Sussex Gaz. 25 Sept. Advt., Brown draught brood mare, with filly foal. |
| 1378 Will of J. Delmarshe in Test. Karl. (1893) 125 Item, Johanni, filio Thomæ Sympson, unum *felystag. |
Hence † ˈfilly v., to give birth to a filly. ˈfillying, vbl. n.
| 1598 Florio, Partorire..to calue..to fillie. Parto..a caluing,..a fill[y]ing, etc. |
▪ II. filly
obs. form of (felloe), felly.