flic
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of flic
1895–1900; < French (slang), perhaps < German; Cf. flick boy, in early modern German thieves' argot (of obscure origin)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"The best-dressed flic in France," as his colleagues called him, Tonnot made no secret of his own close connections with the underworld.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was rheumy old Georges Clemenceau who first called dapper, baldish Jean Chiappe "le flic le plus habile de France," "the smartest cop in France."
From Time Magazine Archive
They dispersed only after a judge reversed a lower-court ruling and freed 19-year-old Gilles Guiot, who had been jailed on flimsy charges of striking a flic during an earlier demonstration.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the one hand, there's the Métro; on the other, there's the flic; while here, you must admit, am I, as large as life and very much on the job!
From The Lone Wolf A Melodrama by Vance, Louis Joseph
Bey's light automatic flic flic flicked its excitement and dust and dirt enveloped the wall facing Crawford.
From Black Man's Burden by Reynolds, Mack
Cara Black has studied Buddhism in India, taught English in Japan, and visits Paris at least twice a year with notebook in hand, to explore and to interview les flics about crime and procedure.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 16, 2022
Publishers are scouring the world for the next crime wave: a few summers hence we may all have forgotten about Oslo and Ystad, and be reading about les flics in Paris and Lyon instead.
From Economist ● Aug. 30, 2012
There has, alas, been no word on whether a half-smoked Gauloise and small glass of Ricard were left at the scene to taunt les flics.
From The Guardian ● May 20, 2010
The flics located the car, and in an excess of cunning watched it for 24 hours in the hope that its owner would show up.
From Time Magazine Archive
Leaders indignantly shouted back to their followers, "Les flics ne veulent pas qu'on passe!"
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
