Also 6–7 flanck(e, flanke, (7 flanque). [f. FLANK sb.1 Cf. Fr. flanquer.]
† 1. intr. To shoot on the flank or sideways; to deliver a raking fire. Obs.
1548. W. Patten, Exped. Scotl., N vij. Loopholes as well for shooting directly foorthward as for flankyng at hand.
2. trans. To guard, protect, strengthen, or defend on the flank.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. xi. 36.
| That Romaine Monarch built brasen wall, | |
| Which mote the feebled Britons strongly flancke | |
| Against the Picts, that swarmed ouer all. |
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, III. ii. 70. In placing the shot about the battell, some do vse to flanke the two sides of the battell with sleeues of shot, by 11, 13, 15, or 17 in a ranke, or more or lesse, as they shall thinke good.
1608. Grimstone, Hist. France (1611), 464. The Brittons horse that flanked the armie, growes amazed, and leaues the foote naked.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 34. It has a Castle large, strong and daring; the materiall is good white chalky stone, flanckt with Ordnance and mounted high to play at advantage.
1662. J. Davies, trans. Mandelslo’s Trav. E. Ind., 215. The Walls are very broad, and flank’d with Towers, built after the ancient way of Architecture, much resembling the Fortifications of the Romans.
1666. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., xxvi.
| By the rich scent we found our perfum’d prey, | |
| Which, flank’d with rocks, did close in covert lie. |
1704. Hymn Vict., lx.
| This Wing the Woods may flank, the Castle that; | |
| They leave it to their Swords and Fate. |
1783. Watson, Philip III. (1839), 95. Drawing a strong intrenchment flanked with bastions, and fortified with artillery betwixt the old and the new part of the town.
a. 1837. H. T. Colebrooke, in Life (1873), 409. Although the parts of the wall do not well flank each other, yet, from the difficulty of access to it, the place can scarcely be taken by a regular siege.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 385. The outer wall … was flanked throughout its length by towers at equal distances of two hundred feet.
fig. 1680. J. Scott, Serm., Wks. 1718, II. 24. Being of so distant a profession, we may very well be excused, if we understand not the language of your discipline, if we cannot talk in rank and file, and flank and rear our discourses with military allusions; in which it is as easy for us to be absurd and ridiculous, as for a fresh-water soldier, that being to make a speech to a company of sailors, will needs interlard his harangue with terms of navigation.
1757. Monitor, No. 100, 18 June, ¶ 8. Ambitious men flank and fortify one crime with another. Sylla had no sooner proclaimed or voted himself dictator; but, to make good this usurpation with a mark of authority, he engaged the senate to approve of all his illegal acts.
1884. Chr. World, 25 Dec., 995/1. Flanking himself with an apt quotation from the Psalms.
absol. 1644. Prynne & Walker, Fiennes’ Trial, App. 11. The foote of the Castle upon a Mount or Rampart was fortified with a gallant Parrapet well flanking, which with its well scraping must needs strengthen it from battering.
1671. Lacey, trans. Tacquett’s Milit. Archit., iii. 4. Each part of the Fortification must flanque and be flanqued.
3. To menace or attack the flank of; to take in flank. Of artillery: To fire sideways upon, to rake.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 123. But all that earth and falling downe of the wall made by the shot of their artillery, was carried away of vs within the city, all our company labouring continually as well by night as day, vntil our enemies had made certaine loope-holes in the wall, thorow the which they flancking and scouring all the ditch with their harquebussie, stopped our former course of carying, or going that way any more, without certaine and expresse danger.
1600. Holland, Livy, xxv. 564. Beaten back affront, beset behind, flanked on the sides … and environned round; were so killed and hewen in pieces, that of eighteene thousand, there were not past two thousand saved.
1736. Lediard, Life Marlborough, III. 40. The Enemy had, from hence, very much flank’d the Right of the Approaches.
1782. P. H. Bruce, Mem., I. 29. This ill-fated ball came from one of our own guns at Schuylenburg’s attack, directed at a bastion, but unhappily missing that object, the ball flanked our own trenches.
1820. Scott, Monast., i. In each village or Town, were several small towers, having battlements projecting over the side-walls, and usually an advanced angle or two with shot-holes for flanking the door-way, which was always defended by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by an exterior grated door of iron.
absol. 1654. trans. Scudery’s Curia Politiæ, 70. To leave no enemy in the rear to march after, and so to flank or offend.
† b. To place (artillery, a battery) on the flank, for either attack or defence. Obs. rare.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., v. 12. They had moored up the Galley, and by it raised up a platform, whereupon they had flanked five and twenty Pieces of Ordnance, but all that stayed him not from advancing towards the Enemy.
4. To take up or be posted in a position at the flank of; to be placed or situated on either side of. Also pass., To be flanked by or with: to have situated or stationed on the flanks or sides.
1651. Davenant, Gondibert, III. II. xvi.
| Full of themselves, delight them onward leads, | |
| Where in the Front was to remoter view | |
| Exalted Hills, and nearer prostrate Meads, | |
| With Forrests flanck’d, where shade to darkness grew. |
a. 1748. C. Pitt, Ep. to Mr. Spence, 33.
| And yet in town the country prospects please, | |
| Where stately colonades are flank’d with trees. |
1779. J. Moore, View Soc. Fr., I. xxiv. 203–4. On leaving Cluse, however, we found a well-made road running along the banks of the Arve, and flanked on each side by very high hills, whose opposite sides tally so exactly, as to lead one to imagine they have been torn from each other by some violent convulsion of nature.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xv. These viands being flanked by a bottle of spirits and a pot of porter, there was no ground for apprehension on the score of hunger and thirst.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. iii. 23. The sun, as we ascended, smote the earth and us with great power; high mountains flanked us on either side, while in front of us, closing the view, was the mass of the Weisskugel, covered with snow.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Europe, iv. § 3. 231. We were therefore delighted to catch sight of a mountain, flanked by real precipices, and with something like a genuine rocky peak.
† b. intr. To occupy a flank position, border on or upon. Obs.
1604. E. Grimstone, Hist. Siege Ostend, 192. They make battery vppon battery, hoping to make a breach: for our partes we double and fortifie our counterscarfe; we peerce six Canoniers vppon the Polder, and ten others which flanke vppon the approches, with foure more in another place.
a. 1680. Butler, Milford-haven, Rem. (1759), I. 417. That Side which flanks on the Sea and Haven needs no Art to fortify it.
1828. Webster, Flank, v. i. to be posted on the side.
5. trans. To march past or go round the flank of; in quot. transf.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 22 Dec., 2/3. Did they flank the snow and go round to the right, or did they bring the whole avalanche down on top of them?
b. U.S. slang. To dodge, etc. (see quot.)
1872. S. De Vere, Americanisms, v. 286–7. The term to flank, which, from the strategy of the generals, descended in the mouth of privates to very lowly and not always honorable meanings. When the men wished to escape the attention of pickets and guards by slipping past them, they said they flanked them; drill and detail and every irksome duty was flanked, when it could be avoided by some cunning trick. Soon, however, honesty itself was thus treated, and the poor farmer was flanked out of his pig and his poultry, and not unfrequently even the comrade out of his pipe and tobacco, if not his rations.
6. In various nonce-uses. a. To strike on the flank or side. b. Of a ship: To present the flank or broadside to (a gale). c. To flank down: to bring down upon the flanks or hips.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 501. As the said wind may flanke it on the side.
1704. Swift, Batt. Bks. (1747) (end). B-ntl-y saw his Fate approach, and flanking down his Arms close to his Ribs, hoping to save his Body; in went the Point, passing through Arm and Side, nor stopped, or spent its Force ’till it had also pierc’d the valiant W-tt-n, who, going to sustain his dying Friend, shared his Fate.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., II. 298.
| For this assault should either quarter feel, | |
| Again to flank the tempest she might reel. |
Hence Flanking vbl. sb., and ppl. a.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4082/3. There is a Flanking Line which runs from the Round Tower.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, V. iii.
| The flanking guns dismounted lie, | |
| The moat is ruinous and dry, | |
| The grim portcullis gone—and all | |
| The fortress turn’d to peaceful Hall. |
1841. Lever, C. O’Malley, xc. At this moment they owed their safety to the chasseurs Britanniques, who poured in a flanking fire, so close, and with so deadly aim, that their foes recoiled, beaten and bewildered.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. v. 294. When he has built his first flanking works, he wants to protect these works in the same way—and so the affair has gone on, from those noble round towers which the architects of the Edwards clustered round the square tower of earlier days, to the long ranges of bastions and redans which covered miles of land under the constructive genius of Vauban and Coehorn.
1870. Daily News, 20 Oct. This distant flanking of their line of communication made the defences that they raised all the easier to examine.
1886. Willis & Clark, Cambridge, II. 508. Each front is divided into two compartments by a string-course of peculiar pattern, similar to that which marks the subdivisions of the flanking turrets.
