Crossword clues for flounce
flounce
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flounce \Flounce\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Flounced (flounst); p. pr. & vb. n. Flouncing.] [Cf. OSw. flunsa to immerge.] To throw the limbs and body one way and the other; to spring, turn, or twist with sudden effort or violence; to struggle, as a horse in mire; to flounder; to throw one's self with a jerk or spasm, often as in displeasure.
To flutter and flounce will do nothing but batter and
bruise us.
--Barrow.
With his broad fins and forky tail he laves
The rising sirge, and flounces in the waves.
--Addison.
Flounce \Flounce\, n. The act of floucing; a sudden, jerking motion of the body.
Flounce \Flounce\, n. [Cf. G. flaus, flausch, a tuft of wool or hair; akin to vliess, E. fleece; or perh. corrupted fr. rounce.] An ornamental appendage to the skirt of a woman's dress, consisting of a strip gathered and sewed on by its upper edge around the skirt, and left hanging.
Flounce \Flounce\, v. t. To deck with a flounce or flounces; as, to flounce a petticoat or a frock.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1540s, "to dash, plunge, flop," perhaps from Scandinavian (compare dialectal Swedish flunsa "to plunge," Norwegian flunsa "to hurry, work hurriedly," but first record of these is 200 years later than the English word), said to be of imitative origin. Spelling likely influenced by bounce. Notions of "anger, impatience" began to adhere to the word 18c. Related: Flounced; flouncing. As a noun from 1580s in reference to a sudden fling or turn of the body; by mid-18c. especially as expressing impatience or disdain.
"deep ruffle on the skirt of a dress," 1713, from Middle English frounce "pleat, wrinkle, fold" (late 14c.), from Old French fronce "line, wrinkle; pucker, crease, fold," from Frankish *hrunkjan "to wrinkle," perhaps ultimately from the same Germanic source as shrink (v.). Influenced in form by flounce (v.). The verb meaning "arrange in flounces" is from 1711.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context sewing English) A strip of decorative material, usually pleated, attached along one edge; a ruffle.(w Ruffle W) 2 The act of flouncing. vb. 1 To move in an exaggerated, bouncy manner. 2 (context archaic English) To flounder; to make spastic motions. 3 To decorate with a flounce. 4 To leave a group dramatically, in a way that draws attention to oneself.
WordNet
Usage examples of "flounce".
Jackie and George watch the Twins splash and flounce around in the jacuzzi with a couple of androgenous men.
The scalloped blaze of his bridgework matches the macabre brilliance of his flounced dicky.
She flounced over to stand beside Jarek, looking at him with adoration shining in her caroba eyes.
She wore a wide, whirling, gypsyish skirt with a flounce at the hem, and the sway and flare and swirl of the skirt seemed to infuse the bland music with energies of an altogether higher order.
She wore not a hoopskirt, but a plum-colored velvet street- or shopping-garment, with flounces, and a long train she had to pick up in a gloved hand whose lace fell over her fingers.
No one was dressed as richly as Rhodine, with four flounces to her pink gown and her hair prinked into ringlets.
Betsy dished up the stew and put the spoons and bowls on the table, and soon the five absent daughters came home, rustling their flounces and flirting their parasols.
The trombonist had been chatting up one of the waitresses, in a pink beribboned dress with Latin flounces.
Prudence put down the receiver and flounced back to the aunts, waiting to play their usual nightly game of Patience.
He might have been reduced to a perfect snit at whatever it was that had annoyed him during the autographing, so that he had flounced up to his room, grabbed his belongings, checked out of the hotel, and gone back to New Jersey.
Gross, horrifying, wattles of excess flesh flouncing on its jowly face, it advanced across the courtyard.
The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze.
I can do very well without you, you — you boy\" With that, Charina flounced angrily away, leaving Kevin standing lost and unhappy behind her.
Male and female, they were painted and dressed, with their long hair crimped and braided in elabo rate styles, their slender, nearly sexless forms hidden be hind flounces and drapes, padding and corsets, or flowing robes with padded shoulders.
She wore a round robe of green cambric, with ahigh waist and long sleeves, and one narrow flounce.