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Definition of flail : 1. An ancient military weapon, like the common flail, often having the striking part armed with rows of spikes, or loaded.
2. An instrument for threshing or beating grain from the ear by hand, consisting of a wooden staff or handle, at the end of which a stouter and shorter pole or club, called a swipe, is so hung as to swing freely.

Synonyms:

slash, thresh about, bat, toss, slam, strike, lick, hightail it, clobber, run, take to the woods, mosh, scarper, scat, attack, thrash, run away, escape, swing, beat, jactitate, break away, move, bunk, cream, convulse, thresh, slam dance, lam, head for the hills, fly the coop, thrash about, drub, turn tail

Usage examples:

• The eagles took the whole thing very seriously and, flapping their great wings, screeched to the sky in their eagerness to begin; and all the other guests, the giraffes, the zebras, the hippos, the storks, the flamingoes, the wild cats, the pelicans, the wild geese, the peacocks, the turkeys, and every thinkable animal contributing to the general noise, there was such an awful din that the snake could only obtain silence by using the thin end of his long body as a flail on the drum- like sides of the elephant. - "Bill the Minder", W. Heath Robinson.
• Thus the northern end of the flail was held and movement along the entire line was slowed down or suspended. - "Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights", Kelly Miller.
• A mud wall formed the back of this shed, under which were a cider- mill, a flail to thresh buckwheat, and several agricultural implements. - "The Chouans", Honore de Balzac.