Pl. flagella. [L. flagellum whip, scourge.]
1. In humorously pedantic use: A whip, scourge.
1807. ‘Ben Block’ (title), Flagellum flagellated.
1830. Lytton, P. Clifford, iii. What a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain, together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing gloves, books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and the reputation—shared only with Lord Dunshunner—of being the best whip in London.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ingol. Penance.
| And in lieu of a supper The Knight on his cupper | |
| Received the first taste of the Father’s flagellum. |
2. a. Bot. A runner or creeping shoot.
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxviii. (1495), 682. The hyghest braunches of a vyne hyghte Flagella.]
1887. Bentley, Bot. (ed. 5), 117. The Runner or Flagellum … is an elongated, slender, prostrate branch, sent off from the base of the stem, and giving off at its extremity leaves, and roots, and thus producing a new plant.
b. Zool. and Biol. A lash-like appendage.
1852. Dana, Crust., I. 227. Outer antennæ as long as the front, flagellum 10-jointed.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 79. The flagella, as well as the undulating membranes, which are often formed in the region of the mouth of many Infusoria, are modifications of the cilia.
1885. Athenæum, 12 Dec. 773/3. Mr. Dowdeswell exhibited a cholera bacillus showing a flagellum at either end, one straight and the other coiled.
