Flites

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. An archaic or Scottish word for a noisy quarrel or angry dispute ; to scold someone harshly or rebuke them at length
2. A bitter exchange of insults in an old-fashioned sense ; to chide or reproach someone loudly for a fault
3. Dialect meaning a heated argument or contention ; a verb meaning to upbraid or berate a person with sharp words

Etymology: "Flites" is the plural of "flite," a noun that meant strife or contention. Its Old English ancestor, "flit," carried that sense of quarrelling, and its close cousins in other languages shift the emphasis: the Dutch "vlijt," German "Fleiß" and Swedish "flit" all mean zeal or diligence. The same Proto-Germanic root, "*flītaz," seems to have covered both striving hard and striving against someone, which is a neat reversal for a single word. The Old English verb "flītan," meaning to strive or contend, comes from the same stock, and it survives in German "befleissen," meaning to apply oneself diligently. In Middle English the noun shows up as "flyt" and "flit," and the modern spelling with a long vowel was probably pulled toward the verb's long vowel, since the Old English noun had a short one. In Scots, the noun survives as "flyte," meaning scolding or reproof, so the quarrelling sense of the root lived on in the north even as the rest of English let it fade.