Flaccian

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to flutter or flap, describing wings beating lightly in the air
2. An Old English term for the quick fluttering or flapping motion of wings or cloth
3. Used in Old English to describe something flapping or fluttering rapidly back and forth

Etymology: Old English "flaccian" meant "to flutter" or "to flap the wings," and it survives today only as the root of "flicker" and "flutter" in the modern sense of quick, light movement. Its origin is not fully settled: it is generally linked to a Germanic root for flapping or waving, and the Old English form is attested in only a handful of texts, so most of what we know comes from its descendants rather than from many recorded uses. The word is best known through its later offspring. "Flicker" in Middle English meant to flutter or flap the wings, and the bird sense of the word, a woodpecker or a flying motion, survives in the name of the northern flicker, a North American woodpecker whose rapid wingbeats in flight give it the name. The sense of a brief, unsteady light came later, when the word was applied to flames and eyelids and then to any faint, wavering glow.