flitch

flitch (FLICH) - n., a cured and salted side of a hog (or, formerly, other animals), a side of bacon; a steak cut from a fish esp. a hallibut; a strip or beam cut lengthways from a log, esp. either a thin piece of wood used as veneer or one of several planks secured to form a laminate beam.


Also as a verb, to cut into flitches or to assemble into a laminate construction. The animal sense came first, going back to Old English flicca and Germanic roots -- despite appearances, apparently not related to flesh, as in all root forms that word always has the -s- sound (usually as flesk or similar).

---L.