Flux, verb. (old).—1. To cheat; to cozen; to overreach. For synonyms, see Stick. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. 2. (old.)—To salivate. Grose, (1785). Fly, subs. (old).—A familiar; hence, by implication, a parasite or sucker (q.v.). [In the sixteenth and seventeenth century it was held that familiar spirits, in the guise of flies, lice, fleas, etc., attended witches, who for a price professed to dispose of the power for evil thus imparted.] 1596. Lodge, Incarnate Devils. This divel prefers an Ephimerides before a Bible; and his Ptolemey and Hali before Ambrose, golden Chrisostome, or S. Augustine: promise him a familiar, and he will take a flie in a box for good paiment. 1610. Ben Jonson, Alchemist i. You are mistaken, doctor, Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly, none of your great familiars. 1622. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, ii., 2. Courtiers have flies That buzz all news unto them. 2. (old).—A printer’s devil; specifically a boy who lifted the printed sheets from the press. [Now the vibrating frame used for the same purpose.] 1688. R. Holme, Academy of Armory. These boys do in a printing-house commonly black and bedaub themselves, when the workmen do jocosely call them devils, and sometimes spirits, and sometimes flies. 3. (trade).—A customer. 4. (common).—The act of spinning a coin. Cf., Flutter. 5. (old).—A public wagon: afterwards (colloquial) a four-wheel hackney coach. Fr., mouche (fly) = a public boat on the Seine. 1714. Memoirs of John Hall, s.v. 6. (common).—A policeman. For synonyms, see Beak and Copper. 1857. Snowden, Magistrates’ Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 446. A policeman; a fly. Adj. (common).—1. Knowing; artful (q.v.); up to every move; cute. Also fly to, a-fly, fly to the game, and fly to what’s what. Cf., Awake, and, for synonyms, see Knowing; fly dog (q.v.). 1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, Cheese it, the coves are fly = be silent, the people understand our discourse. 1823. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act II., Sc. 2. Jerry. Charlies’ fiddles?—I’m not fly, Doctor. Log. Rattles, Jerry, rattles! Jerry rattles! you’re fly now, I see. 1838. Glascock, Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, II., 4. That’s right; I see you’re fly to every fakement. 1850. Lloyd’s Weekly, 3 Feb. ‘Low Lodging Houses of London.’ They say the fliest is easy to take in sometimes—that’s the artfullest; but I could do no good there. 1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 260. ‘We were too fly to send anybody to market but ourselves.’ 1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xxxv. [Chas. Ravenshoe to Shoeblack]. ‘On the cross?’ said Charles. ‘Ah,’ the boy said, ‘he goes out cly-faking and such. He’s a prig, and a smart one, too. He’s fly, is Harry.’