fliting, flyting, vbl. n. Now dial.
(ˈflaɪtɪŋ)
[f. flite v. + -ing1.]
1. a. The action of the verb flite; contention, wrangling; scolding, rebuking; † a reproach.
| c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 13 Twifold speche and ilch fliting of worde. a 1300 Cursor M. 27742 (Cott. Galba) Wreth..it makes fliteing. 1435 Misyn Fire of Love 9 No man suld dar presume nor be pryde raise vp hym-self..when flitynges to hym ar cast. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems lxxxii. 11 May nane pas throw ȝour principall gaittis..For fensum flyttingis of defame. 1636 Rutherford Lett. lxxiii. (1863) I. 189 My meek Lord..would not contend for the last word of flyting. 1816 Scott Antiq. xxxix, ‘I..maun just take what ony Christian body will gie, wi' few words and nae flyting.’ |
b. orig. Sc. Poetical invective; originally, a kind of contest practised by the Scottish poets of the 16th c., in which two persons assailed each other alternately with tirades of abusive verse; also in extended use.
| 1508 Dunbar Poems (title), The flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie. 1585 Jas. I Ess. Poesie (Arb.) 63 Let all zour verse be Literall..bot speciallie Tumbling verse for flyting. a 1605 Montgomerie Poems (title), The Flyting betwixt Montgomery and Polwart. 1934 A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 21 The proceedings ended with a ‘flyting’. Three of the singers..proceeded to improvise stanzas of derision at one another's expense. 1948 English Studies XXIX. 166 The fliting between Unferth and Beowulf. 1959 A. G. Brodeur Art of Beowulf 144 Flytings are either exchanges of rude wit, rough games, or invective preceding a fight. 1962 G. K. Hunter John Lyly vi. 335 In the ‘flytings’ between Katherine and Petruchio the exchanges wear the guise of wit. 1968 Listener 25 Apr. 525/3 Beckett had anticipated the sequence in the flyting in Waiting for Godot. |
2. Comb.: fliting-free a., unrestricted in administering rebukes.
| 1637 Rutherford Lett. clxxxi. (1863) I. 436 Christ is honest, and in that is flyting-free with sinners. 1721 Kelly Scot. Prov. 219, I am flyting free with you. |