[f. FLAG v.1 + -ING2.] That flags; hanging down, drooping; failing, languid.
1545. Raynold, Byrth Mankynde (1564), Cj. That her brestes be full, and have sufficient plentie of mylke, and that they be neyther to great, soft, hangyng, and flaggyng ne to lytle, hard or contracte, but of a measurable quantitie.
c. 1620. Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), 10.
| Ane houre agoe of compasse and of card | |
| Wee had no use, but still against the yard | |
| The flagging mainsaile flapt, but now at last, | |
| The angry heav’ns doe blowe a wrathfull blast. |
1636. B. Jonson, Discov., Wks. (Rtldg.), 759/1. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and shews like stones in a sack.
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, XXIII. 1039.
| The wounded Bird, e’er yet she breath’d her last, | |
| With flagging Wings alighted on the Mast. |
1838. Wordsw., Sonnets, x.
| Why, Minstrel, these untuneful murmurings— | |
| Dull, flagging notes that with each other jar? |
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. v. 189. Those works of Edgar Poe, in which he seems to have had recourse to strong stimulants to rouse a flagging imagination.
Hence Flaggingly adv.
a. 1693. Urquhart, Rabelais, III. v. 54. I would come off but very faintly and flaggingly.
