flail

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A manual threshing device consisting of a long wooden handle or staff and a shorter, free-swinging stick attached to its end.
2. v. To beat or strike with or as if with a flail: flailed our horses with the reins.
3. v. To wave or swing vigorously; thrash: flailed my arms to get their attention.
4. v. To thresh using a flail.
5. v. To move vigorously or erratically; thrash about: arms flailing helplessly in the water.
6. v. To strike or lash out violently: boxers flailing at each other in the ring.
7. v. To thresh grain.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument for threshing or beating grain from the ear, consisting of the hand-staff, which is held in the hand, the swingle or swiple, which strikes the grain, and the middle band, which connects the hand-staff and swingle, and may be a thong of leather or a rope of hemp or straw.
2. n. Milit., a similar implement used as a weapon of war in the middle ages. In this weapon the swingle or swiple was sometimes a ball set with long spikes, and sometimes a pear-shaped or still more elongated body spiked in like manner (in these forms called morning-star: see cut under morning-star); the middle band was a chain; and the hand-staff was of metal in the smaller single-handed flails, or of wood with long tangs and ferrules of metal in the larger forms.
3. To whip; scourge.
4. To strike with or as if with a flail; thresh.

Wiktionary

1. n. A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.
2. n. A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain.
3. v. To beat using a flail or similar implement.
4. v. To wave or swing vigorously
5. v. To thresh.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An instrument for threshing or beating grain from the ear by hand, consisting of a wooden staff or handle, at the end of which a stouter and shorter pole or club, called a swipe, is so hung as to swing freely.
2. n. An ancient military weapon, like the common flail, often having the striking part armed with rows of spikes, or loaded.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. move like a flail; thresh about
2. n. an implement consisting of handle with a free swinging stick at the end; used in manual threshing
3. v. give a thrashing to; beat hard