flitch

Etymology

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.

noun

1. The flank or side of an animal, now almost exclusively a pig when cured and salted; a side of bacon.
   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. 2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 95
   The programme was loosely derived from a folk tradition, the Great Dunmow Flitch, in which the most happily married couple in the village were rewarded with a gift of a flitch of beef. 2004, Dominic Strinati, Stephen Wagg, Come on Down?: Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, Routledge, page 186
2. A piece or strip cut off of something else, generally a piece of wood (timber).
   The Measure of a shell or Flitch of Timber. If a piece be taken out of the middle of a round piece of Timber from end to end; there will be left two pieces, which they call Shells or Flitches. 1706, Henry Coggeshall, The Art of Practical Measuring … The Third Edition, Corrected, page 39
   An edge chipper chips waney edges of a flitch of timber having parallel top and bottom sides, the flitch passing through feed roll pairs extends outward as a cantilever as it moves towards revolving chipper ... 1972, United States. Patent Office, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office: Patents, page 130

verb

1. (transitive) To cut into, or off in, flitches or strips.
   to flitch logs
   to flitch bacon