flounce

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (4)  · 
“
The points of the flounce are darned back and forth in selvedge effect; but they may be worked in button-hole stitch if preferred.

View all »
Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A strip of decorative, usually gathered or pleated material attached by one edge, as on a garment or curtain.
  2. transitive verb To trim with a strip or strips of gathered or pleated material.
  3. intransitive verb To move in a lively or bouncy manner: The children flounced around the room in their costumes.
3 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Pay attention Kit didn't think he'd ever seen a more skillful disgruntled female flounce--stationary, no less, in a straight-backed bar chair-but she didn't argue. —  Time Scout
  • She had finished her flounce, and she rose and gave Anne the needle. —  Mistress Anne
  • Her black skirt was so short that it was like a flounce, and nothing more; from chest to back there was no more width than could be covered by the scraggy little arm, the feet dangled half- way to the floor, and the hands waved about, emphasising every sentence with impassioned gestures At the end of ten minutes what the pupils of Holly House did not know about the O'Shaughnessy family may be safely described as not worth knowing! —  Pixie O'Shaughnessy
  • I will show you how to arrange the flounce, and you will soon do it yourself if you try Very well"--rather sulkily. —  A Crooked Path A Novel
  • Now let him frisk and flounce, and run and roll, And think to break his hold; he toils in vain. —  The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 06
More examples »
 

Tags

flounce hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 186 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

flounce:   flounced
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Alteration of frounce, from Middle English, pleat, from Old French fronce, of Germanic origin; see sker-2 in Indo-European roots.
  2. Possibly of Scandinavian origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. Middle English not found; cf. obsolete fluce (Nares), flounce; from Swedish dial. flunsa, dip, plunge, fall into water with a plunge, Old Swedish flunsa, plunge, = Norwegian flunsa, hurry, work hurriedly; cf. flumsa, fly fast, fly hard.
  2. from flounce, v.
  3. A changed form of earlier frounce, q. v.
  4. from flounce, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/flaʊns/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a year.

Recently looked up

legerdemain · attics · eschatological · Softwood · Frustrated

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Glockenspiel · Ersatz · Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid · Haifischschwanzflossenfleischsuppe · Der Kottbusser Postkutscher putzt den Kottbusser Postkutschkasten