fillip \FIL-up\, noun:
1. A snap of the finger forced suddenly from the thumb; a smart blow.
2. Something serving to rouse or excite; a stimulus.
3. A trivial addition; an embellishment
transitive verb:
1. To strike with the nail of the finger, first placed against the ball of the thumb, and forced from that position with a sudden spring; to snap with the finger.
2. To snap; to project quickly.
3. To urge on; to provide a stimulus, by or as if by a fillip.
If any one in Mirgorod gives him a neckerchief or underclothes, he returns thanks; if any one gives him a fillip on the nose--he returns thanks then also.
--Nikolai Gogol, "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich"
[Y]ou may take your coffee of a morning in the little garden in which he wrote finis to his immortal work -- and if the coffee is good enough to administer a fillip to your fancy, perhaps you may yet hear the faint reverberation among the trees of the long, long breath with which he must have laid down his pen.
--Henry James, Collected Travel Writings
[I]nflation can always give only a temporary fillip to the economy.
--Friedrich Hayek, "Can We Still Avoid Inflation?"
Her raspberry cream tart is given an added fillip with bourbon and nutmeg.
--Marian Burros, "Cooking," New York Times, June 3, 1984
The utopian and romantic -- and in the end completely unrealistic -- idea that the building should serve as a mooring post for airships led to the creation of a tower on the tower, giving a final fillip to the design.
--Nathan Glazer, "Miracle on 34th Street," New York Times, December 3, 1995
You fillip me o' the head.
--Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
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Fillip is probably of imitative origin.
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Distance Swum
February
17,400m
October
3,800m
November
4,150m
December
.
Distance Cycled
November
120km
December
297 km
FD, are you planning on doing a longish run this Saturday. My program has me doing 2hr 30min or thereabouts. Maybe we could get together for a run followed by a restorative coffee or two (cappuccino for me; long black for you!) Maybe Aki as well?
Look after yourself ducky!!!!