flap

Noun

flap (plural flaps)

1. (obsolete) A blow or slap (especially to the face).
   • 1450, Palladius on Husbondrieː

     Ware the horn and heels lest they fling a flap to thee.

   • a1500 The Prose Merlinː

     The squire lift up his hand and gave him such a flap that all they in the chapel might it hear.

2. (archaic) A young prostitute.
   • 17th century, James Mabbe (1572-1642), Celestina IX. 110ː

     110 Fall to your flap, my Masters, kisse and clip. Ibid. 112 Come hither, you foule flappes.

3. Anything broad and flexible that hangs loose, or that is attached by one side or end and is easily moved.
   • Sir Thomas Browne

     a cartilaginous flap upon the opening of the larynx

   • 1998 October, Robert H. Mohlenbrock, “Twin Peaks”, in Natural History, volume 107, number 8, page 73:

     The hairs guide the pollinating insect to the base of the petal, where there is a purplish nectary covered by a flap of tissue.

   a flap of a garment;   The envelope flap seemed curiously wrinkled.

4. A hinged leaf.

   the flaps of a table; the flap of a shutter

5. A side fin of a ray - also termed a wing.
6. An upset, stir, scandal or controversy

   The comment caused quite a flap in the newspapers.

   • 1962, Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, Yearling Books, →ISBN, page 167:

     “ […]We saw him vanish right in front of the rest of us. He was there and then he wasn’t. We were to wait for a year for his return or for some message. We waited. Nothing.” ¶ Calvin, his voice cracking: “Jeepers, sir. You must have been in sort of a flap.”

7. The motion of anything broad and loose, or a stroke or sound made with it.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.

   the flap of a sail;  the flap of a wing

8. A disease in the lips of horses.
9. (aviation) A hinged surface on the trailing edge of the wings of an aeroplane.
10. (phonetics) A consonant sound made by a single muscle contraction, such as the sound [[ɾ]] in the standard American English pronunciation of body.

    Synonym: tap

11. (surgery) A piece of tissue incompletely detached from the body, as an intermediate stage of plastic surgery.
12. (slang, vulgar, chiefly plural) The female genitals.

Verb

Domestic pigeons flap their wings

flap (third-person singular simple present flaps, present participle flapping, simple past and past participle flapped)

1. (transitive) To move (something broad and loose) up and down.

   The crow slowly flapped its wings.

   • 2004, Robert Jordan, New Spring, page 316:

     He could be flapping his tongue about you right this minute to anybody who'll bloody listen.

An Australian flag flaps in the wind

1. (intransitive) To move loosely back and forth.

   The flag flapped in the breeze.

   • 2011 September 29, Tom Rostance, “Stoke 2 - 1 Besiktas”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Former Turkey goalkeeper Rustu Recber flapped at his first Delap throw but was given a soft free-kick by referee Antony Gautier.

2. (computing, telecommunications, intransitive) Of a resource or network destination: to be advertised as being available and then unavailable (or available by different routes) in rapid succession.

Derived terms

• cat flap
• flapper
• unflappable

Derived terms

• appelflap
• flappentap
• flappen tappen

Declension

Derived terms

• flapan
• flapön