flip-flap, adv., n. and a.
(ˈflɪpflæp)
[onomatopœic reduplication of flap, expressive of repeated oscillating movement.]
A. adv. With a repeated flapping movement.
| 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1879) 51 Then they goe flip-flap in the winde. 1775 in Ash. 1894 Crockett Raiders 35 Flounders fried in oatmeal..with their tails jerking Flip, flap, in the frizzle of the pan. |
B. n.
† 1. Something that ‘goes flip-flap’ (see A.), e.g. a hanging piece of cloth, a fan, a fly-flapper. Obs.
| 1529 Skelton Elynour Rummyng 514 Couer thy shap Wyth sum flyp flap. 1598 Florio, Ventaglio..a flip flap or any thing to make wind with. 1600 Dekker Old Fortunatus in Dodsl. O. Pl. (1816) III. 127–8 If I hear any gingling but of the purse-strings that go flip, flap..would I were turn'd into a flip-flap and sold to the butchers. 1611 Cotgr., Esventoir, a fanne, flip-flap. |
† 2. A frivolous woman: = flap n. 9. Obs.—1
| 1702 Vanbrugh False Friend 1, The light airy flipflap, she kills him with her motions. |
3. slang. a. ‘A kind of somersault in which the performer throws himself over on his hands and feet alternately’; also, ‘a peculiar rollicking dance indulged in by costers’ (Slang Dict. 1864). b. In sailors' use: ‘The arm’ (Barrère & Leland 1889). Cf. flipper n.2 2. c. A kind of firework, a cracker.
| a. 1676 Character Quack Doctor 5 He danc'd a Saraband with Flip flaps, and Sommersets. 1727 Gay Fables xl. 31 The tumbler whirles the flip-flap round, With sommersets he shakes the ground. 1764 Garrick in G. Colman, Jun. Posth. Lett. (1820) 256 Flip flaps, and great changes without meaning. 1851 D. Jerrold St. Giles xxxi. 324 This..iniquitous world—a world of flip-flaps and sumersets. |
| c. 1885 Pall Mall G. 5 Nov. 4/1 To-night..the sound of the obtrusive and saltatory flip-flap will be heard in the streets of Great Britain. |
d. In a place of amusement or the amusement section of an exhibition, etc., a machine with long moving arms by which passengers are raised on platforms (see quot. 1908).
| 1908 Daily Chron. 3 Apr. 7/2 The..huge steel arms [are] 150 ft. in length, much like the main shaft of a crane, greatly magnified... These arms will be slowly raised until their extremities cross in the air, 150 ft. above the level, and then each will complete the semi-circle. Suspended from..the hand of each steel arm will be a car containing passengers... The flip-flap is built on the cantilever principle with heavy counter weights. 1922 C. Sidgwick Victorian xxii, He is going to have millions of Japanese lanterns and a Flip-Flap and an open air café like at Earl's Court. 1937 Evening News 2 Feb. 8/6 Those who were young enough..for such delights thirty years ago must have been surprised to learn that the Flip-Flap of Franco-British Exhibition fame is still in existence. |
4. U.S. ‘A kind of tea-cake’ (Farmer).
| 1876 Besant & Rice Gold. Butterfly xviii, As we sat over her dough-nuts and flipflaps. |
C. adj. That ‘goes flip-flap’ (see A.).
| 1841 Blackw. Mag. I. 635 Music..with..butterfly flip-flap flights, and die-away cadences. 1888 Spectator 7 July 934 That easy imitation of French flip-flap brush work which is so fashionable at the present time. |
Hence ˈflip-flap v.
| 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuffe Wks. (Grosart) V. 255 The sly sheepe-biter..summer setted & flipt flapt it twenty times aboue ground. 1894 Hall Caine Manxman iv. xii. 245 Nancy Joe went flip-flapping upstairs. |