fillip

noun

1. (archaic)The action of holding the tip of a finger against the thumb and then releasing it with a snap; a flick.
2. A sharp strike or tap made using this action, or (by extension) by other means.

   “Arch[ers]. In default of six pistoles, / Choose then without ado / To receive thirty fillips, / Or twelve blows with the stick. / Punch. If it must be, and that I must pass through that, I choose the fillips.”

3. (broadly)Something unimportant, a trifle; also, the brief time it takes to flick one's finger (see noun sense 1); a jiffy.

   “Eat, drink and love; the rest's not worth a fillip.”

   “Now among the treasures in the palace of the Dragon King of the World Under the Sea were two jewels having wondrous power over the tides. [...] Whoever owned them had the power to make the tides instantly rise or fall at his word, to make the dry land appear, or the sea overwhelm it, in the fillip of a finger.”

4. (broadly)Something that excites or stimulates.

   “This measure gave a fillip to the housing market.”

   “The athlete’s victory provided a much-needed fillip for national pride.”

   “He sat at the head of the table with his hat on, and an eye beaming even more luminously than his nose. He had a quiz and a fillip for every one, and a good thing on every occasion.”

   “Changes, however, such as we all require, must by no means be confused with fillips—artificial stimulants, which are bad for everybody. These last may be easily recognised and known for what they are, by their suddenness and violence, as well as by the temporary character of their effects.”

   “Some branches [of the Wolverhampton iron and steel trade] are quiet, a few are slack, but generally they are, for the most part, well employed. The outlook cannot be so well gauged. It only requires a bit of a spurt to give a fillip to several branches, and these would stimulate the rest.”

verb

1. (transitive)To strike, project, or propel with a fillip (that is, a finger released quickly after being pressed against the thumb); to flick.

   “Mene[laus]. An odde man Lady, euery man is odde. / Creſ[ſida]. No Paris is not, for you know tis true, / That you are odde and he is euen with you. / Mene. You fillip me a'th head.”

   “The Sounds that produce Tones, are euer from ſuch Bodies, as are in their Parts and Pores Equall; As well as the Sounds themſelues are Equall; And ſuch as are the Percuſſions of Metall, as in Bels; Of Glaſſe, as in the Fillipping of a Drinking Glaſſe; [...]”

   “[...] If one Man upon angry Words ſhall make an Aſſault upon another, either by pulling him by the Noſe, or filliping upon the Forehead, and that he is ſo aſſaulted ſhall draw his Sword, and immediately run the other through, that is but Manſlaughter; for the Peace is broken by the Perſon killed, and with an Indignity to him that received the Aſſault.”

   “Quail combats were well known among the ancients, especially at Athens. [...] Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which being first smitten or filliped with the middle finger, a feather was then plucked from its head: if the quail bore this operation without flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away.”

   “He talked on, therefore, at great length, while I merely leaned back in my chair with my eyes shut, and amused myself with munching raisins and filliping the stems about the room.”

2. (broadly, transitive)To project quickly; to snap.

   “Yet he obſerv'd how ſtill his Iron Balls / Recoyl'd in vain againſt our Oaken Walls. / How the hard Pellets fell away as dead, / By our inchanted Timber fillipped.”

   “The use of the elastic switch to fillip small missiles with, and the remarkable elastic darts of the Pelew Islands, bent and made to fly by their own spring, indicate inventions which may have led to that of the bow, while the arrow is a miniature form of the javelin.”

3. (broadly, transitive)To strike or tap smartly.

   “[I]t was almost, if not quite as fine in Napoleon, hitting the Frenchmen between wind and water, filliping their chivalry on the one hand, by absolutely disbelieving that so many would go about to kill one man, and catching their admiration of courage on the other, by affecting to consider them as too few to intimidate him: [...]”

   “The boughs were so tangled that in following the obstructed track it became necessary to screen his face with his hands to escape the risk of having his eyes filliped out by the twigs that impeded his progress.”

   “He [Ishi] combed and brushed his hair daily. He washed it frequently, drying it by filliping it and beating it with a small stick as it hung in the sunlight.”

4. (figuratively, transitive)To drive as if by a fillip (noun sense 1); to excite, stimulate, whet.

   “The spicy aroma filliped my appetite.”

   “Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark this in our old Mogul's wine; it’s quite as deadening to some as filliping to others.”

5. (ambitransitive)To make a fillip (noun sense 1) (with the fingers).

   “As they were drinking after dinner, the prince jocosely dipped his finger in a glass of wine, and fillipped it into Oglethorpe's face.”