Meaning of Fillip | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The action of holding the tip of a finger against the thumb and then releasing it with a snap; a flick.
   archaic
2. A sharp strike or tap made using this action, or (by extension) by other means.
3. Something unimportant, a trifle; also, the brief time it takes to flick one's finger (see noun sense 1); a jiffy.
   broadly
4. Something that excites or stimulates.
   broadly

Equivalents

Examples

“And let him ſuppoſe, that if a Man in the beginning of the World, or four or five hundred Years ago, had laid a little round Marble upon a Table, and to put the ſame in Motion, had given it a Fillip with his Finger; the ſaid Marble, according to the abovemention'd Law of Nature, would (if no other Force had oppos'd its Motion) have moved to this very Minute with the ſame Velocity in a Right-Line, and without ceaſing, would have continued to run in the ſame Line ſuch a Length, as no Man could determine the end of.”

“The blasphemy done to a mortal man is punished with the sword, and shall the blasphemy done to God escape think you with a fillip in the forehead, or with the knock of a little wooden betel, as it is begun to be punished in certain men's houses now of late? Nay, verily. It is no fillip matter except we will admit such a fillip as shall fillip them down into the bottom of hell-fire. God is no puppet, nor a babe. It is not a fillip that can wipe away the blasphemy of his most blessed name, before his high throne and glorious majesty.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The outline could apply to most of the self-effacing, increasingly inward-looking comedies written and directed by Hong Sang-soo, and it certainly describes "The Day He Arrives," an agreeably meandering exercise that brings some clever French New Wave fillips and structural repetitions to Hong's characteristically boozy party.”

“Labor has emerged victorious in critical byelection contests in Tasmania and Queensland in a significant fillip for the federal leader, Bill Shorten, boosting its primary vote in Longman and harvesting the lion’s share of preferences in Braddon.”

“In a fillip to the Labour government, the Washington-based organisation said it expected the UK economy to grow by 1.6% in 2025, up from an earlier forecast of 1.5%.”

CEFR level