[f. prec.]
1. trans. To strike with a fly-flap; to heat, whip.
1612. Shelton, Quix., II. lx. 405. I giue you my word to beat my selfe and fly-flappe mee when I haue a disposition to it.
1627. Lisander & Cal., VII. 123. O, answered she, behold the Gentleman with the little sword, who will doe vs good; by S. Iohn I must call my husband to fly-flap you.
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com., Wks. (1709), 209. I was Fly-flap’d.
1796. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue (ed. 3), Flyflapped, whipt in the stocks, or at the cart’s tail.
2. intr. To drive away files with a fly-flap.
Hence Fly-flapping vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1797. Edin. Mag., May, 344. Beelzebub, or the Lord of Flies … whom I must renounce with all his works, even that of fly-flapping.
1881. Miss Braddon, Asph., III. vii. 204. There seemed to be nobody about save the fly-flapping boys, and women and children offering new milk or the everlasting edelweiss.
