▪ I. flop, n. colloq. and dial.
(flɒp)
[See the vb., and cf. flap n.]
1. a. The action of the vb. flop; the heavy dull sound produced by ‘flopping’.
| 1823 Moor Suffolk Words s.v., ‘I'll gi yeow a flop.’ 1854 L. Lloyd Scandinavian Adv. II. 271, I was startled by something descending, with a great flop, on to my hat. 1882 Pall Mall G. 11 Oct. 5 The flop of a water-rat or the whirr of the grey-hen. |
b. A noise resembling this.
| 1836 T. Hook G. Gurney III. 33 Stuffing his finger into his mouth and pulling it out suddenly, with what he..called a flop. |
c. Something loose and pendulous; = flap n. 4.
| 1900 in Eng. Dial. Dict. II. 419/1. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 11 Sept. 3/2 She achieves another immense flop with the back of the brim well pinned in position over the knob of hair which..flops on her neck. 1909 J. R. Ware Passing Eng. 134/2 Flop. When the lower classes of women adopted the ‘cretin’ or ‘poodle’ style of wearing the hair low down over the forehead, they gave it this name. 1933 V. Woolf Writer's Diary 9 May (1953) 200 A little servant girl with honest eyes, hair brushed in a flop. |
† 2. = flap n. 1 b. Obs.
| 1662 Rump Songs ii. 3 To give us a Flop with a Fox-tail. |
3. dial. A mass of thin mud. Also transf.
| 1844 W. Barnes Poems Rural Life Gloss. 304. 1852 C. Fox Jrnl. 23 Aug. (1882) 276 The oven where the fiery flop [molten metal] was shut up for six weeks to cool. |
4. a. U.S. college slang. (see quot.)
| 1851 B. H. Hall College Words, s.v., Any ‘cute’ performance by which a man is sold [deceived] is a good flop. |
b. A turn-round; a sudden change of policy or party. U.S.
| 1880 N.Y. World 22 Nov. 5/1 Mr. Skinner's apparent flop on the railroad question is injuring his chances in the Speakership struggle. 1904 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republ. 7 Oct. 2 That a flop by the most militant of the unionists is under contemplation has been denied. 1911 H. S. Harrison Queed xviii. 230 So ran the editorial, which was offensively headed ‘West's Fatal Flop’. 1929 Collier's 5 Jan. 41/1 It was basically a ‘flop’. |
c. A failure, collapse, or decline. Also, a person or enterprise (esp. a play, etc.) that is a failure. slang.
| 1893 Farmer Slang, Flop. 2... A sudden fall or ‘flop’ down. 3... A collapse or breakdown. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 28 Jan. 6/2 There has been a flop in Trunks, but Canadas have been good. 1927 Sunday Express 15 May 5/7 Nearly all the American turns prove a flop. Yet they think they can command the earth. 1930 Publishers' Weekly 18 Oct. 1851 These authors every once in a while write a flop. 1931 Discovery Nov. 372/2 Fokker's first invention was a ‘flop’. 1934 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 June 406/3 She, too, is a common type—the Hollywood flop. 1936 Amer. Speech XI. 221 If it [sc. a play] just somehow doesn't click or register, it's doomed to be another flop. 1945 L. A. G. Strong Othello's Occupation 121 He's pretty wobbly, professionally speaking. He's had two flops in the suburbs. 1957 Economist 5 Oct. 24/2 As a gesture of defiance Argentina's one-day general strike last week was a flop. 1969 Times 7 Nov. 3/1 Neil Simon..has had eight Broadway hits..and the question everyone is asking..is whether he's got a flop in him. |
d. A ‘flabby’ or ‘soft’ person. slang.
| 1909 H. G. Wells Tono-Bungay ii. iv. 171 All the little, soft feminine hands, the nervous ugly males, the hands of the flops, and the hands of the snatchers! 1923 Glasgow Herald 12 Dec. 10 If that little flop..believes he can play fast and loose with the moral consciousness of this nation. 1936 ‘F. O'Connor’ Bones of Contention 70 She was a great flop of a woman. |
e. U.S. slang. A bed; a place to rest or sleep; = flop-house.
| 1910 D. Ranney Autobiogr. iv. 70 You can get a bed in a lodging-house for ten cents, or if you have only seven cents you can get a ‘flop’. 1913 E. A. Brown Broke iii. 28 Say, Jack, can you tell a fellow where he can find a free flop? 1916 Amer. Mag. May 14/1 She said to tell you this ain't no hobos' flop, neither. 1925 Lit. Digest 11 July 50/1 You better go around to one of the missions. There's a couple of 'em will give you a flop for nothing. 1930 J. Dos Passos 42nd Parallel 75 They couldn't find any⁓place that looked as if it would give them a flop for thirty-five cents. 1955 Publ. Amer. Dialect Soc. xxiv. 120 So we go up to my flop. |
5. attrib. and Comb., in various words in which flop is a variant of flap; as flop-ear, flop-eared, flop-mouth. Also flop-damper, flop-wing (see quots.); flop-house slang (orig. U.S.), a doss-house.
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 889/1 *Flop-damper, a stove or furnace damper which rests by its weight in open or shut position. |
| 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 351/1 The old English hog with ‘*flop’ ears. |
| 1846 J. J. Hooper Adv. Simon Suggs ii. 28 You..gnatty, *flop-eared varmint! 1880 M. E. Braddon Just as I am lii, A brace of flop-eared setters bounding before him. |
| 1923 N. Anderson Hobo iii. 30 ‘*Flop⁓houses’ are nearly all alike. Guests sleep on the floor or in bare, wooden bunks. The only privilege they buy is the privilege to lie down somewhere in a warm room. 1927 Scots Observer 26 Mar. 10/3 The lowest of the derelicts spent the night..in a ‘flophouse’ (which is worse than the lowest ‘model’). 1930 Harper's Mag. July 133 The Welfare Council of New York had to charter an old barge..as an overflow flop house. 1941 Wyndham Lewis Let. 3 Sept. (1963) 297 If I don't do something to break out of the net, I shall end my days in a Toronto flophouse. 1964 S. Bellow Herzog (1965) 249 Get out! I leave you nothing!.. Croak in a flophouse. |
| 1604 Meeting of Gallants 15, I love to heare tales when a merrie corpulent Host bandies them out of his *Flop⁓mouth. |
| 1885 Swainson Prov. Names Birds 184 Lapwing (Vanellus vulgaris)..*Flopwing. |
▸ Poker. In Hold 'Em and Omaha: the dealing of the first three of the five community cards; these three cards.
| 1973 T. A. Preston & B. G. Cox Play Poker to Win vi. 77 Three cards are dealt face up in the center. This is called the flop, and these are community cards to be used by all players in making their hands. 1987 N.Y. Times 23 May 8/2 The flop was 5, 8, King. 1994 Independent (Nexis) 28 June 34 They go all in on aces before seeing the flop and then find themselves outdrawn by a miserable lower pair like 4s or 5s. 2002 A. Bellin Poker Nation ii. 22 During one hand some guy raised on his pocket cards before the flop, and we called. |
▪ II. flop, adv. and int. colloq.
(flɒp)
[The vb. stem so used.]
With a flop, with a flopping noise. Also fig.
| 1728 Vanbr. & Cib. Prov. Husb. i. i. 14 Dawn came I flop o' my Feace all along in the Channel. 1863 Kingsley Water Bab. iii, The beetles fell flop into the water. 1883 E. Pennell-Elmhirst Cream Leicestersh. 177 Reynard dashed out flop against the only hound on that side of the tree. a 1887 Jefferies Field & Hedgerow 177 ‘Dalled if he didn't fall into the pond, flop!’ 1930 Daily Express 6 Sept. 4/2 Every one adopts a ‘wait and see’ policy, and business goes ‘flop’. |
▪ III. flop, v. colloq. and dial.
(flɒp)
[onomatopœic var. of flap v., the change of vowel indicating a duller or heavier sound.]
1. intr. To swing or sway about heavily and loosely; = flap v. 5.
| 1602 Marston Ant. & Mel. v. Wks. 1856 I. 60 A husband..with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chinne, readie still to flop into his foming chaps. 1838 Holloway Provincialisms, s.v., ‘The sail flops against the mast.’ 1883 K. W. Hamilton in Harper's Mag. 845/1 One side [of a wet umbrella] flopped dejectedly. |
2. a. To move clumsily or heavily; to move with a sudden bump or thud. Of a bird: To flap the wings heavily. Also with away, down, over, etc.
| 1692 [See flopping]. 1827 Clare Sheph. Cal. 4 They flop on heavy wings away. 1850 P. Crook War of Hats 43 Then flopping on his seat..he sinks. 1859 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 13 He flopped over on his side, quite stiff and unconscious. 1870 H. Smart Race for Wife x, She flopped down on her knees, and implored for mercy. 1879 J. W. Boddam-Whetham Roraima 105 Tortoises flopped into the water. 1887 Besant The World went i. 7 Blue water over your head, and the whales flopping around your grave. 1887 A. Brassey in Last Voy. ix. 222 A..grey sea flopping up on our weather bow. |
b. fig. to flop (over): to make a sudden change in one's attitude or behaviour. Also trans., to cause to change sides; to bring over. U.S.
| 1884 Puck 6 Aug. 359/1 It is not the Independents who have ‘flopped’ this time. It is the Republican Party that has ‘flopped’ from honesty to dishonesty. 1892 Nation (N.Y.) 6 Oct. 268/3 His [Sardou's] characters..flop over and act in a way quite the reverse of what we had a right to expect. 1894 Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Okla.) 18 Jan. 1/4 The purported change was..a fake to enable that canine barnacle, Soule, to flop his politics. 1904 Omaha Bee 3 Sept. 6 A number of New York newspapers have flopped to the support of Parker. 1904 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republ. 16 Dec. 8 Mr. Roche flopped the Boston Pilot to the support of the republican candidate. 1926 C. R. Cooper Oklahoma 123 Hurriedly lawmakers who had been opposed to it ‘flopped’ to the other side. |
c. spec. To sleep. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1907 J. London Road (1914) 107 ‘Kip’, ‘doss’, ‘flop’, ‘pound your ear’, all mean the same thing; namely, to sleep. 1926 J. Black You can't Win vi. 66 It was time to ‘flop’. They took off their shoes and coats. 1936 W. A. Gape Half a Million Tramps x. 301 Where the hell are you going to ‘flop’ tonight? 1959 N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 84 They're filthy..diseased..what's the town mean, why aren't they put in the coop where they belong, why should they be flopping so near our house in a meadow? |
d. fig. To collapse, fail (cf. flop n. 4 c). slang.
| 1919 Wodehouse Damsel in Distress viii, The summer⁓time number [in a theatre] flopped on the second night. 1928 Observer 15 July 15/1 If..the play ‘flops’ after a run of..three or four nights. 1936 P. Fleming News from Tartary 28 She published a book on that journey, which flopped. 1967 M. Reynolds After Some Tomorrow 61 Lenin supposedly tried to apply the teachings of Marx to Russia—and flopped. |
3. trans. To throw suddenly, generally with the additional notion of making a bump or thud. Also with down, in, etc.
| 1823 Moor Suffolk Words s.v., ‘A floppt his affections’ on such a one. 1836 Marryat Midsh. Easy xxxviii, She..flopped herself into the standing bed-place. a 1845 Hood Agric. Distress iii, In bolts our bacon-hog Atwixt the legs of Master Blogg, And flops him down in all the muck. 1854 Baker Northampton Gloss. s.v., ‘How you flop it in.’ 1859 Dickens T. Two Cities ii. i, ‘What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me?’ |
4. To move (wings, etc.) heavily and loosely up and down.
| 1859 Tennent Ceylon II. vii. 254 Cawing and flopping his wings in the sky. 1891 Camb. Rev. 12 Mar. 264/2 One or two of them at least sat..feebly flopping their hands about. |
5. To strike with a sudden blow. to flop up (the eyes): to bung up; = flap v. 1. dial.
| 1838 Bywater Sheffield (ed. 3) 227 If thah gets drunk, an flops a watchman's een up. 1888 Sporting Life 15 Dec. 5/5 'E carnt flop a bloke. |
6. U.S. College slang (see quot.).
| 1851 B. H. Hall College Words, s.v., ‘A man writes cards during examination to feeze the profs..and he flops the examination if he gets a good mark by the means.’ One usually flops his marks by feigning sickness. |
Hence ˈflopping ppl. a.
| 1679 Trial of Langhorn 53 He had a gray Coat on, and plain Shooes, and a flopping Hat. 1692 R. L'Estrange Fables ccccix. 384 A Huge Flopping Kyte. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. I. 24 Jealous watch-dog..E'en rous'd by quawking of the flopping crows. |