fillip

The action of holding the tip of a finger against the thumb and then releasing it with a snap; a flick.

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.

A sharp strike or tap made using this action, or (by extension) by other means.

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.

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.

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.

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; [...]

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.

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 most convenient pleximeter is the middle finger of the left hand, smoothly applied by its palmar surface on the part to be percussed. [...] The stroke is made, in most cases, with the tips of the two or three first fingers brought to a level, or with only a single finger. [...] Percussion may be strong or gentle; in the latter case, the stroke may be made by filliping gently upon the back of a single finger, or upon the nail. By gentle percussion, a sound is elicited whose character will depend on the condition of the wall, and of the parts immediately beneath it; whereas, when it is forcible, the deeper tissues will modify the result.

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.

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.

"Oh! we have done very, very wrong in giving our daughter in marriage to you, for if I but fillip my finger, and the fillip should fall on her baby's eye, it will be blind, and there will be our poor little grandchild with only one eye." "But where is the child?" said the Sultan. "It may come, you know;" answered Gertrude. "You are all foolish," cried the Sultan, angrily; "I have not yet married your daughter, and yet you are weeping for the fate of her child; Isabella is very beautiful, but far too foolish for my wife; good bye, I will have nothing to say to any of you."