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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

flay.

To cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/fleɪ//fliː/dialectal
  1. To cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
  2. To frighten; scare; terrify.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
  3. To be fear-stricken.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English flayen, flaien, fleien, from Old English flīeġan ("to cause to fly, put to flight, frighten"), from Proto-Germanic *flaugijaną (“to let fly, cause to fly”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (“to fly”).

noun/fleɪ//fliː/dialectal
  1. A fright; a scare.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal
  2. Fear; a source of fear; a formidable matter; a fearsome or repellent-looking person.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English flayen, flaien, fleien, from Old English flīeġan ("to cause to fly, put to flight, frighten"), from Proto-Germanic *flaugijaną (“to let fly, cause to fly”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (“to fly”).

verb/fleɪ//fliː/dialectal
  1. To strip the skin off; to skin.

  2. To lash or whip.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English flen, from Old English flēan, from Proto-West Germanic *flahan, from Proto-Germanic *flahaną.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.