flick
/flɪk/noun, verb
flick is spelled F-L-I-C-K: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.3 times per million words in written English, the 12,397th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Flick, the name). As a noun, flick means “A short, quick movement, especially a brush, sweep, or flip” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of flick is flicks.
How many letters and syllables are in flick?
| Letters | 5: F-L-I-C-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.3 times per million words; the 12,397th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is flick?
Flick appears 4.3 times per million words in written English, the 12,397th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Flick, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce flick?
- /flɪk/
Flick has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-flick.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with flick
Sounds like: flic (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of flick
- flicks plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- flicking participle, present
- flicked participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does flick mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A short, quick movement, especially a brush, sweep, or flip.
He removed the speck of dust with a flick of his finger.
- 2
informalA motion picture, movie, film; (in plural, usually preceded by "the") movie theater, cinema.
My all-time favorite flick is "Gone with the Wind."
- 3
A cut that lands with the point, often involving a whip of the foible of the blade to strike at a concealed target.
- 4
A powerful underarm volley shot.
- 5
The act of pressing a place on a touch screen device.
- 6
A flitch.
a flick of bacon
- 7
A unit of time, equal to 1/705,600,000 of a second.
- 8
datedslangA chap or fellow; sometimes as a friendly term of address.
verb
- 1
To move or hit (something) with a short, quick motion.
flick one's hair
- 2
To pass by rapidly, so as not to be perceived clearly.
Near-synonym: flit
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Flick in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | piparote , sacudir |
| French | défiler , pichenette, chiquenaude |
| German | schnipsen |
| Spanish | tincar, tingar , tincazo, capirotazo, papirotazo, chiclazo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does flick come from?
From Middle English flykke (“light blow or stroke”). Later uses apparently interpreted as a back-formation from flicker. The use of flick to mean a film or movie derives from the fact that early films had a low frame rate, thus causing the film to "flick" rapidly when projected onto a screen.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).