subs. (old).—1.  A flighty creature.

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  1702.  VANBRUGH, The False Friend, I. 1. The light, airy, FLIPFLAP, she kills him with her motions.

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  2.  (popular).—A step-dance; a CELLAR-FLAP (q.v.). Also (acrobats’); a kind of somersault, in which the performer throws himself over on his hands and feet alternately.

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  1727.  GAY, Fables, ‘The Two Monkeys.’

          The tumbler whirles the FLIP-FLAP round,
With sommersets he shakes the ground.

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  1872.  M. E. BRADDON, Dead-Sea Fruit, ch. xiv. There ain’t nothing you can’t do, Morty, from Shylock to a FLIPFLAP.

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  1889.  Pall Mall Gazette, 12 Nov., p. 6, col. 2. There were the clowns who danced, turned somersaults, FLIP-FLAPS, and contorted themselves.

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  3.  (American).—A kind of tea-cake.

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  1876.  BESANT and RICE, The Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. The first evening I took tea with Mrs. Scrimmager. ‘It must be more than a mite lonely for you,’ she said, as we sat over her dough-nuts and FLIPFLAPS, ‘up at the tavern.’

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  4.  (nautical).—The arm. For synonyms, see BENDER.

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  5.  (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see CREAMSTICK and PRICK.

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  1653.  URQUHART, Rabelais, I., 20.

        I might have cleft her water-gap
And joined it close with my FLIP-FLAP.

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