Fling

I must have a fling at … Throw a stone at something. To attack with words, especially sarcastically. To make a haphazard venture. Allusion is to hurling stones from slings.

To have his fling. To live on the loose for a time. To fling about his time and money like “ducks and drakes.”

“If he is young, he desires to have … his ‘flingʹ before he is compelled to settle down”—Nineteenth Century (February, 1892, p. 208).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.