Orig. Sc. [f. FIRE sb. + FLAUGHT. Cf. FIRESLAUGHT.]

1

  1.  Lightning; a flash of lightning; a storm of thunder and lightning.

2

c. 1375.  Barbour[?], Troy-bk., I. 468.

        Ande fyre-flauthtis our þe feldes flee
Ine syk fladdanis & flambys britht.

3

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., VI. v. 33.

          A gret fyreflawcht and a felle
Ðan hapnyd in Rome, as I herd telle.

4

1552.  Lyndesay, Monarche, 5556.

        Quhen all takinnis bene brocht til end,
Than sall the Sonne of God discend;
As fyreflaucht, haistely, glansyng,
Discend sall the maist hevinly king.

5

1645.  Rutherford, Tryal & Tri. Faith (1845), 149. Reasons work not in a moment, as fire flaughts in the air: Christ putteth souls to weight the bargain, to consider the field and the pearl, and then buy it.

6

1816.  Scott, Old Mort., xxxviii. He passed by me like a fire-flaught when I was in the garden!

7

1876.  Miss Yonge, Three Brides (ed. 3), I. xi. 167. Julius and I often see her walking about the lanes; but she passes like—like a fire-flaught, whatever that is—just bows, and hardly ever speaks.

8

  b.  The northern lights; aurora borealis.

9

1787.  Grose, Prov. Gloss., Fire-flaught … the northern lights.

10

  2.  transf. a. A sudden burst or rush.

11

1637.  Rutherford, Lett., civ. (1863), I. 265. Yet I fand that a fire-flaught of challenges will come in at mid-summer, and question me. But it is only to keep a sinner in order.

12

1880.  Swinburne, A Study of Shakespeare, 173. Even Goneril has her one splendid hour, her fire-flaught of hellish glory.

13

  b.  A fiery glance.

14

1802.  Jamieson, Water Kelpie, viii., in Scott, Minstr. Scott. Bord. (1869), 538.

        From ilka ee the fire-flauchts flee,
  And flash alangis the flude.

15

1826.  J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 136. Every coorser flingin fire-flaughts frae his een, and whitening the sweat o’ speed wi’ the foam o’ fury.

16