Other forms: flicks, flicking, flicked
To flick is to move something with one quick snap of a finger or wrist. You flick a crumb off the table, flick the light switch, flick a wet towel at someone's leg.
Things flick by themselves too — a horse's tail, a lizard's tongue, your eyes flicking to the clock and back. Flick through means to turn pages fast without really reading: you flick through a magazine in a waiting room. As a noun it is the movement itself, and it takes OF — a flick of the wrist, a flick of the tail. In relaxed British and American speech a flick is also a film, so you get a horror flick and a chick flick, and the flicks means the cinema.
1verbflickTo move something with one quick light stroke of a finger, wrist or tail.
“He flicked the ash off his sleeve without looking down.”
2verbfastTo move fast and lightly, or to jump from one place to another.
“Her eyes flicked to the clock and back to the page.”
3verbturnTo turn pages or move through things quickly, one after another.
“She flicked through the magazine while the kettle boiled.”
4nounsnapA quick light movement or stroke.
“The whole trick is in one flick of the wrist.”
5nounfilmA film — relaxed, everyday speech.
“It was a cheap horror flick and we loved every minute.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Flick starts as Middle English flykke, a light blow or stroke, and its later uses look like a back-formation from flicker. The cinema sense has a mechanical reason behind it: early films ran at a low frame rate, so the picture flicked visibly on the screen. That flickering is how a film became a flick.
Middle English
flykke — light blow or stroke
English, today
flick
From Middle English flykke (“light blow or stroke”). Later uses apparently interpreted as a a back-formation from flicker. The use of flick to mean a film or movie derives from the fact that early films had a low frame rate, thus causing the film to "flick" rapidly when projected onto a screen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA