flyer n.2
1. a game, a ‘lark’.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘Answer to Captain Morris’ in Hilaria 77: Such pieces we push at, of pure flesh and blood; / Take a flyer in town, ’tis a hot butter’d bun, / And you’re certain to pay thro’ your nose for your fun. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Real Life in Ireland 280: From whim and frolic...he would go into the racket court in the Marshalsea, and have a flyer with any prisoner for a few pots of porter, hit or miss. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Innocents Abroad 357: In the Hellespont we saw where Leander and Lord Byron swam across [...] merely for a flyer, as Jack says. | |
| in Sketches New and Old 312: It so happened that we stepped into the Revere House, thinking maybe we would chance the salt-house in that big dining-room for a flyer, as the boys say. |
2. a wager or investment.
| Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 29: Let’s have a flyer if you’re flush. | |
| Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 11 July 229/3: Lend me a quarter [...] just for a flyer. | |
| Vocabulum. | |
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 447: ‘I’ll go yer a hundred fur a flyer,’ now sung out another capper, who up to this moment had remained a silent spectator of the scene. | |
| Pall Mall Gazette 26 Aug. 11/1: He [...] turned to the Wall-street news to see how much he had already made on his flyer . | |
| Wichita Eagle (KS) 11 Nov. 7/1: If a man every goes back to the table to play a little flyer after having made a large winning he’s a ‘goner’. | |
| Shorty McCabe 35: He goes off and leaves his good money up, just on a flier like that. | |
| Hand-made Fables 294: The Matrimonial Speculation—that’s more than a Flier. Margins don’t go. The Geek has to set in his whole Stack. | |
| New York Day by Day 31 Aug. [synd. col.] Men who have their ‘flyers’ in Wall street go to him for consolation. | |
| (con. 1920s) Big Money in USA (1966) 908: Suppose you try a little flyer in Auburn just to get your hand in. | |
| et al. DAUL 71/2: Flier. Any risky, unplanned act; a desperate gamble; going to trial against overwhelming odds. |
3. a try; an attempt.
| Sketches New and Old (1926) 170: My refusal of the position at $7,000 a year was not precisely meant to be final, but was intended for what the ungodly term a ‘flyer’—the object being to bring about an increase in the amount. | |
| Connecticut Yankee 113: The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and then. [Ibid.] 424: I chanced another flyer. | |
| Fighting Blood 123: It wasn’t long before I took a flyer at this game again. | |
| Honest Rainmaker (1991) 100: Ricecakes, during his short flyer with the Spirit of the Times, had gained insight into how much money could be made [etc.]. |
In phrases
1. to have quick and spontaneous sexual intercourse with both parties fully or partially dressed.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: To take a flyer, to enjoy a woman with her clothes on, or without going into bed. |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785]. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 31: Faire une barbe. To copulate; ‘to take a flyer’. |
2. to go out on a spree.
| City in Sl. (1995) 65: To go on a tear, to take a flyer, or especially to make whoopee was the way nightlifers spoke of these tamer sprees in the 1920s. |
3. (US) to take a chance, to gamble, esp. financially.
| Ten Years in Wall Street 37: As for those who take ‘flyers’ in one or two hundred shares, they are a great host whom no man can describe, much less enumerate. | |
| Checkers 8: I ’m jes’ takin’ a flyer on her to win today. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 158: The hotel’s staff read ‘the dope’ daily and took a flyer, one and all. | |
| ‘Man About Town’ Four Million (1915) 84: The oldest girls are eagerly perusing the financial reports, for a certain young man remarked [...] that he had taken a flyer in Q., X. & Z. | |
| Daffydils 23 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] If a woman took a flyer in Wall Street would the street cleaner? | |
| Fighting Blood 264: Me and Nate and Kayo Kelly has already took a flyer in something apart from the ring. | |
| (con. 1920s) Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 521: He had taken this flyer on Imbray Stock [...] as if it were nothing more than risking a few shekels in a crap game. | |
| (con. 1920s) Big Money in USA (1966) 747: He [...] took a flyer for the bit money in connection with a pulpmill started in Maine. | |
| et al. DAUL 218/1: Take a flier. 1. To commit a crime of gain impulsively, with no foreknowledge or plan. 2. To act impulsively or without plan. | |
| in Sweet Daddy 106: Sometimes I take a flyer but mostly I play it both feet on the ground. | |
| Texas by the Tail (1994) 151: Financing? We’ll take a flier on almost anything. | |
| Faggots 20: [It belonged to] Piping Rock sportsmen taking a flyer. | |
| Will (con. 1973) 328: [A] college professor, who had taken a flyer on a marijuana venture, was released on bond . | |
| Bad Chili 203: They [...] decided you guys had a connection, took a flyer and toted Hap out to the woods. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 145: I [...] half thought maybe I could’ve just took a flier and that, could’ve just done a runner and hoped for the best. | |
| I, Fatty 258: He figured what the heck. He’s take a flyer. |
4. (US prison) to escape from prison.
| Prison Sl. 109: Takin’ a Flier A seldom used expression meaning to escape from prison. |
5. to escape, to run away from.
| Long Wait (1954) 115: She took a flyer on Lenny and so what. |