Flick

How to spell flick

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flick

What does flick mean?

1. verbTo move something with a quick, sharp, light motion, or to strike it lightly.
2. nounA quick, light blow or sudden small movement.
3. nounAn informal word for a cinema film or movie.

Flick in a sentence

• verb

  She paused to flick a crumb off the table.

• noun

  A single flick of her wrist sent the ball across the table.

• noun

  They grabbed popcorn and settled in for a late-night flick.

• verb

  You can flick the switch to turn on the porch light.

• noun

  With one flick of his finger he knocked the paper aside.

• noun

  The new action flick broke box-office records last weekend.

Where does flick come from?

Language of origin: Other

Flick is one of those words English seems to have invented by ear rather than by inheritance, and it is generally judged to be imitative in origin, mimicking the light, sharp sound of a quick tap or sudden movement. It appears in late Middle English, around the 1400s, first describing a light blow or flip given with the finger or with a whip. Because it began as a sound suggestion, it has no Latin or Greek root and no foreign parent to trace; it simply echoes the brisk action it names. Over the centuries it spread to many quick gestures, from flicking a light switch to flicking a speck of dust away. The twentieth-century slang sense meaning a film grew out of the flickering of early projected images, where the picture seemed to jump and shimmer on the screen.

How the word is built

• flick (a single, unanalysable root word of imitative origin; no prefix or suffix)