flapdragon

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“
He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents; he certainly had none at all for those who (as he said) printed malicious and lying pamphlets against him "almost every morning," in which he found himself saluted as a "nest of perfidious vipers," "a night-flying dragon prince," "a flapdragon," "a caterpillar," "a spider," and "a

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Definitions (5)

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  1. A play in which the players snatch plums, raisins, or other things out of burning brandy or spirits, and swallow them; snapdragon; also, the materials for the game. Stabbing of arms, flap-dragons, healths, whiffs, and all such swaggering humours. B. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, v., Palinode. I'll go afore, and have the bonfire made, My fireworks, and flap-dragons, and good backrack. Fletcher, Beggars' Bush, v. 2.
  2. A plum, raisin, or other thing to be snatched from the burning liquor in playing flapdragon. See the extracts. He … drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons. Shak., 2 Hen. IV., ii. 4. Flap-dragons are plums, &c., placed in a shallow dish filled with some spirituous liquor, out of which, when set on fire, they are to be dextrously snatched with the mouth. This elegant amusement was once more common in England than it is at present, and has been at all times a favourite one in Holland. Thus in Ram Alley: “My brother swallows it with more ease than a Dutchman does flap-dragons.” Gifford, Note to B. Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, v., Palinode. Such were flap-dragons, which were small combustible bodies fired at one end and floated in a glass of liquor, which an experienced toper swallowed unharmed, while yet blazing. I. D' Israeli, Curios. of Lit., III. 31.
  3. To swallow at one gulp; snatch and devour, as in the play of flapdragon. To make an end of the ship;—to see how the sea flap-dragoned it. Shak., W. T., iii. 3.

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Examples (1)

  • He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents; he certainly had none at all for those who (as he said) printed malicious and lying pamphlets against him "almost every morning," in which he found himself saluted as a "nest of perfidious vipers," "a night-flying dragon prince," "a flapdragon," "a caterpillar," "a spider," and "a —  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 20, June, 1859
 

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Etymologies (2)

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  1. from flap + dragon. Also called snapdragon, q. v. The allusion is to the popular ‘fiery dragon’ or firedrake.
  2. from flapdragon, n.
 

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