flitch

From Middle English flicche, from Old English fliċċe (“side of an animal, flitch”), from Proto-Germanic *flikkiją (“side, flitch”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁ḱ- (“to tear, peel off”). Cognate with Low German flikke, French flèche, Icelandic flikki (“flitch”), Middle Low German vlicke.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /flɪtʃ/

flitch (plural flitches)

1. The flank or side of an animal, now only a pig when cured and salted; a side of bacon.
   • 2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage 2003, p. 95:

     The following morning before Nicholas awoke, Mulvey walked all the way to the village of Letterfrack, returning with a basket of cabbages and a flitch of bacon, two loaves of fresh bread and a plump broiling chicken.

flitch (third-person singular simple present flitches, present participle flitching, simple past and past participle flitched)

1. (transitive) To cut into, or off in, flitches or strips.

   to flitch logs

   to flitch bacon

• Shipley, Joseph Twadell (2009): The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots
• Scherer, Philip (1941): Germanic-Balto-Slavic Etyma, Issues 26-34, p. 29