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FLUTTERING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The motion made by flapping up and down
Synonyms:
flap; flapping; flutter; fluttering
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("fluttering" is a kind of...):
undulation; wave ((physics) a movement up and down or back and forth)
Derivation:
flutter (move back and forth very rapidly)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb flutter
Context examples:
Once I shipped a sea so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart fluttering like a bird, but gradually I got into the way of the thing and guided my coracle among the waves, with only now and then a blow upon her bows and a dash of foam in my face.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
First came a fluttering of the eyeballs, so that she was compelled to close her eyes for relief.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
There was a great fluttering and flapping of canvas and reef-points, most welcome to my ears, then she filled away on the other tack.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
It was as if I had seen her admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Here and there bounded Sir Nigel, his head erect, his jaunty plume fluttering in the air, while his dark opponent sent in crashing blow upon blow, following fiercely up with cut and with thrust, but never once getting past the practised blade of the skilled swordsman.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Little Raphael, as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of civilisation was control, restraint—a poise of self that was as delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid as steel.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
