flaw

1) This is one of several Yorkshire spellings for the name once given to thin layers of heath cut for fuel.

1474 iiijth fuder of flaughis, North Duffield

1611 leadinge and carryinge away flawes from Airton Highsyde

graving flawes, Airton

1638 ‘twelve loades of flawes’, Balne. The clearest explanation of its meaning is in Studies in Nidderdale by Lucas: The top spit of the peat is cut with a spade with a long bent handle called the flaying spade, into pieces sometimes a yard long and eight or ten inches wide. These strips are called flouts. In the OED ‘flaght’ and its variant spellings are equated with ‘turf’ but in several of the contexts quoted here it seems clear that the two were sometimes distinct. Since ‘peat’ is so rarely used it may be that ‘flaw’ and its variants had acquired this meaning in some localities.

dates 1474 1611 1638

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