Etymology: variant of flash n.¹

Etymology: A word found in nearly all the Germanic and Romance languages; whether adopted from late Latin into Germanic, or conversely, is undetermined. The earliest known examples are in Latin; three different declensional forms appear in medieval Latin, and all of them are represented in the Romance languages. (1) In Gregory's Dialogues c600 ( ii. xviii; compare i. ix) the form flascō , flascōnem (whence Italian fiascone , French flacon : see flagon n.¹) denotes a wooden vessel, apparently a small keg intended to be carried by pedestrians and to contain a supply of wine to be consumed on a journey; it is there stated to be a word belonging to the common vernacular. In later use the word appears as a synonym of butticula , bottle n.³, and applied to a vessel either of wood, leather, metal, earthenware or glass. The Greek translation of Gregory's Dialogues, believed to be of the 8th cent., has ϕλασκίον , which is frequent in Byzantine writers of the 10th cent. (2) In the 7th cent. Isidore ( Etym. xx. vi. §2) gives the form flasca , which he regards as a derivative of Greek ϕιάλη , stating that flascæ were originally made for carrying and storing phialæ (? shallow drinking cups), though afterwards used to contain wine; the form survives in Italian fiasca , Old French flache , flasche , flaske , flasque (the last of these survived till 16th cent., and in the sense ‘powder-flask’ to a later period). (3) The form flascus is given in Du Cange, but is probably only a latinized form of Italian fiasco , which may represent medieval Latin flasco (nominative); equivalent forms are Spanish flasco , frasco , Portuguese frasco . The word occurs in all the Germanic languages except Gothic, and always as weak feminine: Old English flasce , more usually flaxe , Old High German flasca (Middle High German vlasche , also vlesche with the vowel change normal in some dialects before sch ; modern German flasche ), Middle Dutch flassche , flessche (modern Dutch flesch ); Old Norse flaska is doubtful, as it has only been found in the nicknames flǫsku-skegg , flǫsku-bakr , explained by Vigfusson as ‘bottle-beard’, ‘bottle-back’; Icelandic, Swedish flaska , Danish flaske may be from German. In the modern continental Germanic languages it is the ordinary word for bottle; in Old High German it had the same wider sense as in Old English (see 1 below). The Old English word, which would normally have become *flash in modern English, appears not to have survived into Middle English. In 16th cent. the French flasque was adopted in the sense powder-flask (the wider sense being then already antiquated in French). The older French sense, a bottle, first appears in English about 1700; whence it was adopted is not clear, but as the word is chiefly associated with Italian wine and oil, it may most naturally be regarded as from the Italian fiasco, the etymological identity of which with the already existing English word would be readily perceived.Scholars who regard the word as of Romance origin usually accept the view of Diez, that flasco is for *vlasco , a metathesis of *vasclo , < Latin vasculum . This is satisfactory with regard to meaning (St. Gregory describes as vascula lignea what he says were vulgarly called flascones ), and involves no insuperable difficulty with regard to form, though the phonetic process supposed has no precise parallel in any known instance; for approximately similar phenomena, such as flaba < fābula , see Diez. The early occurrence of the types flascam , flascōnem , and the absence of the type flascum in early use, are somewhat unfavourable to this hypothesis. The assumption that the word is of Germanic origin is chronologically legitimate, and presents no difficulty except the absence of any satisfactory etymology. A connection with flat adj. would be phonetically probable, but there is no evidence that the noun originally meant a flat vessel. From Germanic the word has been adopted into many other languages: Lapp flasko, lasko, Hungarian palaczk, Polish flasza, Czech flaše.

Etymology: < French flasque one of the cheeks of a gun-carriage, variant of flaque plank, beam, perhaps of Germanic origin; compare German flach level, flat. In 16th cent. flanque (apparently = ‘side piece,’ < flanc flank n.¹) occurs in the same sense.

Etymology: See flash v.¹

Etymology: < flask n.²