Plural of flic; French slang term for police officers or detectives.
From French 'flic,' derived from the acronym or abbreviation for police forces, or possibly from the motion of striking/flicking (as in striking suspects), entering English through adopted French vocabulary, particularly in crime fiction and noir literature.
Flics entered English crime fiction and spy novels as a stylish way to reference French cops, giving English writers and readers a way to sound cosmopolitan while discussing Parisian police—linguistic borrowed prestige.
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