Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A kind of tea-cake.
  • With a flapping noise.
  • noun A continual light flapping; the repeated stroke or noise made by the alternating movements of something broad, flat, and limber.
  • noun A somersault.
  • noun A flighty person.
  • noun A neuropterous grub, the dobson or hellgrammite.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The repeated stroke of something long and loose.
  • adverb With repeated strokes and noise, as of something long and loose.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To flop or flap about.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb with repeated strokes and noise

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Then I could viddy a light being put on in the hall, and then I could hear the old baboochka's nogas going flip flap in flip-flap slippers to nearer the front door, and I got the idea, I don't know why, that she had a big fat pussycat under each arm.

    Where's the show? John Myles Aavedal 2010

  • Flip-flap, flip-flap went her footfalls through the still heat of the day, and persistently, incurably, her umbrella sought to slip from under the elbow that retained it.

    The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth Herbert George 2004

  • Description: “First he twists on his left leg, then lightly springs to the right on the other, then comes back again like a rubber ball onto his left leg, and taking an extra flip-flap fires the ball over the plate.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • Description: “First he twists on his left leg, then lightly springs to the right on the other, then comes back again like a rubber ball onto his left leg, and taking an extra flip-flap fires the ball over the plate.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • Description: “First he twists on his left leg, then lightly springs to the right on the other, then comes back again like a rubber ball onto his left leg, and taking an extra flip-flap fires the ball over the plate.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • At its dormer window she stood listening to the coorooing of the fantails and the sudden flutter and flip-flap of their wings climbing the air from the yew-hedged garden.

    Over the River 2004

  • But I heard his observation on the weather, and the flip-flap of his tail on the ground.

    Travels in West Africa 2003

  • People flitted by like black shadows in the dark streets, and their shoes went flip-flap on the greasy pavements.

    Maigret and the Man on the Bench Simenon, Georges, 1903- 1975

  • When he did a round off a flip-flap and a high back somersault, a row of head-sets across the ring, finishing by doing heels in the mud, Alfred turned green with envy.

    Watch Yourself Go By Ben W. [Illustrator] Warden

  • Out sprang Bill and Sam and set about the puddin'-thieves like a pair of windmills, giving them such a clip-clap clouting and a flip-flap flouting, that what with being punched and pounded, and clipped and clapped, they had only enough breath left to give two shrieks of despair while scrambling back into Watkin Wombat's Summer Residence, and banging the door behind them.

    The Magic Pudding Norman Lindsay 1924

Comments

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  • "1. A continual light flapping; the repeated stroke or noise made by the alternating movements of something broad, flat, and limber.

    2. A somersault.

    3. A flighty person.

    4. A neuropterous grub, the dobson or hellgrammite.

    5. With a flapping noise.

    6. A kind of tea-cake."

    --Century Dictionary

    November 15, 2010