▪ I. † flet1 Obs.
Forms: 1, 3–6, 8 flet, 3 south. vlet, 4–5 flett(e, (6 fleete, fleit, flelt), 7–8 flett.
[OE. flęt(t = OFris. flet, OS. flet, fletti, OHG. flazi, flezi (MHG. vletze, Ger. dial. fletz), ON. flet str. neut.:—OTeut. *flatjo{supm}, f. *flato- flat a.]
1. The floor or ground under one's feet.
| Beowulf 1568 (Gr.) Heo on flet ᵹecrong. a 1000 Canons Powerful Men ii. (Thorpe, 1840) 414 & ne cume on bedde ac licᵹe on flette. a 1300 E.E. Psalter cxviii. [cxix] 25 Clived mi saule to þi flet. c 1340 Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 568 A tule tapit tyȝt ouer þe flet. a 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 473 Thi berne also be playne, and harde the flette. c 1450 Myrc 273 Knelynge doun upon the flette. |
b. ? A place, spot, field (of battle).
| c 1205 Lay. 26023 Þat he com to þan ulette þer þe feond lai and slæpte. c 1300 K. Alis. 2378 They broughte heom out of the flette. |
2. A dwelling, house, ‘hall’.
| Beowulf 1025 (Gr.) Beowulf ᵹeþah ful on flette. a 1000 Laws Hlothhære & Eadric xi. (Thorpe 1840) 14 Ȝif man mannan an oðres flette man-swara hateð..scilling aᵹelde þam þe þæt flet aᵹe. a 1300 Siriz 273 So ich evere brouke hous other flet. c 1325 Poem Times Edw. II 309 in Pol. Songs (Camden) 337 An hep of girles sittende aboute the flet. c 1460 Towneley Myst. (Surtees) 26, I shal not in thi det Flyt of this flett! |
b. Sc. The inner part of a house.
| a 1400 Burgh Laws xxiii. (Sc. Stat. I.) Þe inner halfe of þe hous þat is callyt þe flett. c 1450 Holland Howlat lxiv. 830 The fulis fonde in the flet And mony mowis at mete On the flure maid. 1508 Dunbar Flyting 242 Rank beggar, ostir dregar, foule fleggar, in the flet. 1598 Ferguson Sc. Prov. 4 A fair fire makes a room flet. 1768 Ross Helenore ii. 588 That seven years have sitten i' the flet. |
3. fire and flet (corruptly fleet): ‘fire and house-room’; an expression often occurring in wills, etc.
Bp. Kennett (a 1728) quotes in MS. Lansd. 1033 fol. 132 an ‘old northern song over a dead corps’, containing the lines ‘Fire and fleet and candle light, And X{supt} receive thy sawle’. In Sir W. Scott's Minstrelsy of Scot. Border (1802) 232 the words appear as ‘Fire and sleet’, and the editor suggests that sleet ‘seems to be corrupted from selt, or salt, a quantity of which is frequently placed on the breast of a corpse’!
| 1533 Trubb in Weaver Wells Wills (1890) 129 To fynd the said wife..mete and drink, fyer and flelt. 1539 Will of R. Morleyn (Somerset Ho.) My wife to have..fyre & fleete in my haule & kechin. c 1570 Durham Depos. (Surtees) 207, I trobled..this house with a bedd roome and fier and fleit. |
▪ II. flet2 Sc.
(flɛt)
Also fleat.
[app. repr. ON. flétta plait, f. flétta = Ger. flechten to plait.]
A mat of plaited straw placed on a pack-horse's back to prevent chafing or galling.
| 1794 W. Sutherland in Statist. Acc. Scotl. X. 23 Straw creels..fixed over straw flets, on the horses backs, with a clubber and straw ropes. 1812 Capt. Henderson Agric. Surv. Sutherland v. §5. 60 The horse being equipped with a fleat and clubbar on his back. |
▪ III. flet
see fleet v.1 and v.2