[f. FLEET v.1 + -ING1.] The action of the vb. in various senses.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, III. 588. To furthyr thaim off thar fleting.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xx. (1887), 84. It [walking] is good … for the iaundise, costifnesse, fleeting of the meat in the stomacke, [etc.].
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xv. 229. The fleeting of soules out of one body into another, is fathered vpon him [Pythagoras].
1616. Rich Cabinet, 95 b. The proudest confidence maketh our chiefest footing a changeable fleeting.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 127. One of the best known of English witch ordeals is the trial by ‘fleeting’ or swimming. Bound hand and foot, the accused was flung into deep water, to sink if innocent and swim if guilty, and in the latter case, as Hudibras has it, to be hanged only for not being drowned.
