sb. [f. FLAP v. + -ER1.] One who or that which flaps, in senses of the vb.
1. One who flaps or strikes another. Hence (after Swift): A person who arouses the attention or jogs the memory; a remembrancer. Also, of a thing: A reminder.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, III. ii. 17. Those Persons [the absent-minded philosophers of Laputa] who are able to afford it always keep a Flapper (the Original is Climenole) in their Family, as one of their Domesticks, nor ever walk abroad or make Visits without him. And the Business of this Officer is, when two or three more Persons are in Company, gently to strike with his Bladder the Mouth of him who is to speak, and the right Ear of him or them to whom the Speaker addresseth himself.
1747. Chesterf., Lett., xcix. (1774), I. 291. I write to you, therefore, now, as usual, by way of flapper, to put you in mind of yourself.
1852. Blackw. Mag., LXXI. Jan., 85. There is some advantage in having a flapper to remind us of our faults—it enables us the better to make a ‘clean breast of it.’
2. Something flat to strike with; a fly-flap.
1570. Levins, Manip., 72/2. A flapper, flabellum.
1783. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Ode R. Academicians, ii. Wks. 1812, I. 55.
| With butchers form for flies most charming flappers; | |
| And Monday mornings at the tub, | |
| When Queens of Suds their linen scrub, | |
| Make for the blue-nos’d nymphs delightful wrappers. |
1884. Pall Mall G., 15 Aug., 4/2. The captain sat … with a flapper specially made for the slaughter of the vermin at his right hand.
fig. 1612. trans. Benvenuto’s Passenger, I. v. 335. It would serue him for a looking glasse, wherein he might discerne humane miseries, it would be as a rudder to stirre and conduct him into a secure port, and an effectuall flapper to driue away the Flies of all worldly vanities.
b. Something broad and flat used for making a noise by striking.
1825. Scott, Talism., xi. Sometimes they became rivals for the conversation, and clanged their flappers in emulation of each other, with a most alarming contention.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., Flappers, clappers for frightening birds. The loose parts are generally called the flappers.
1889. Cent, Dict., Flapper … 5. pl., very long shoes worn by negro minstrels.
3. A young wild duck or partridge.
1773. G. White, Selborne, xxxix. 99. I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks.
1809. Mar. Edgeworth, Tales Fashion. Life, Manœuvring, xiv. Lightbody happened to be gone out to shoot flappers.
a. 1825. in Forby, Voc. E. Anglia.
1888. Berksh. Gloss., Vlapper, a young partridge just able to fly.
4. Something hanging flat and loose; spec. the striking part of a flail, a swingle.
1854. Lowell, Jrnl. Italy, Prose Wks. 1890, I. 194. As he lifts the heavy leathern flapper over the door, and is discharged into the interior by its impetuous recoil, let him disburthen his mind altogether of stone and mortar, and think only that he is standing before the throne of a dynasty which, even in its decay, is the most powerful the world ever saw.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, I. 5. Her hair was well frizzed—for which she might have been indebted to her husband’s professional skill—and it was surmounted by a cap with large flappers.
1893. Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Z., I. 37. Runham, flourishing his flail over his head, and throwing out the flapper in the direction of Drownlands.
b. A broad fin or flipper; the tail of a crustacean.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xxii. 154. He was a short red-haired young man, with hands as broad as the flappers of a turtle.
1876. Miss Buckley, Short Hist. Nat. Sc., xl. 421. The wing of a bat, the front leg of a horse, the hand of a man, and the flapper of a porpoise, are all made of the same bones, which have either grown together, or lengthened and spread apart.
1880. Huxley, Crayfish, i. 20. These two plates on each side, with the telson in the middle, constitute the flapper of the crayfish, by the aid of which it executes its retrograde swimming movements.
c. slang. The hand. (Cf. flipper).
[1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), I. 441. He thrust out a couple of broad arms, or rather flappers, something like the tails of Turkey sheep, with which he muffled up my head all round as with the hood of a great coat.]
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 201. My dear Mr. Simple, extend your flapper to me, for I’m delighted to see you.
1868. Lessons Mid. Age, 19 ‘Come, Frank, and extend the flapper of friendship!’
d. (See quot.)
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Cov., xviii. 232. Two well-mounted officials, termed, I believe, ‘flappers’ by disrespectful sportsmen; but whose duty, it appears, is to keep the chase in view till it either beats them off for pace, or leaves them ‘planted’ at some large awkward impediment, the latter obstacle generally presenting itself in about three fields.
5. Something hanging or working by or as by a hinge. In pl. = CLAPNET.
1796. J. Owen, Trav. Europe, I. 265. The stranger came up, claimed the flappers, and told us, they were ‘pour attraper les papillons.’
1839–47. R. B. Todd, The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, III. 958/1. The opercular bones, forming flappers which open and shut the openings of the branchiæ.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, 110. The flappers or doors being so arranged that they should fall to or close of themselves immediately the blast is passed, and so restore the ventilation to its ordinary course.
6. attrib. and Comb. as flapper-shooting (sense 3); also flapper-bag (see quot.); flapper-dock, (a) = flap-dock; (b) (see quots.); flapper-skate (see quot.).
1871. N. & Q., Ser. IV. VIII. 143/1. *Flapper-bags, burdocks, or what is better known in Scotland as docken.
1886. Britten & Holland, Plant-n. Suppl., *Flapper Dock, the large leaves of the Colt’s foot. Probably Petasites vulgaris.
1865. Standard, 43 July, 5. Mr. Clutterbuck … proceeded … up the Brousa for the purpose of *flapper shooting.
1839. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, II. Suppl. 66. Raia intermedia, *Flapper Skate.
1886. Günther, in Encycl. Brit., XX. 299/2. The Flapper Skate (R. macrorhynchus).
Hence Flapper v. intr., to move like a flapper, i.e., with a loose flapping motion.
1835. Hogg, The Hunter of Comar, in Fraser’s Mag., XI. March, 359.
| But still the two serpents came flappering on, | |
| They flung themselves sideways, o’er stock and o’er stone. |
1862. J. F. Campbell, Tales W. Highlands, IV. 140. They hoisted the lumbering yards, and the three great flappering sails, against the tall tough stringy bending masts, and the cordage rattled through the blocks.
1869. Peacock, Lonsdale Gloss., Flapper, to quiver, to flutter.
