Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Flounce   Listen
verb
Flounce  v. i.  (past & past part. flounced; pres. part. flouncing)  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." "With his broad fins and forky tail he laves The rising sirge, and flounces in the waves."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Flounce" Quotes from Famous Books



... her loveliest aspects. The island of sand no longer seemed a dreary waste. Brighter rolled the blue waves of ocean beneath the golden beam; and sweeter murmured the billows on their sandy beach. My heart rejoiced with the playful fishes, as they leaped high wantoning in the air, or, with sudden flounce, returned again, wild darting through their lucid element. Our work went on in joy. The palmetto trees were brought to us by the blacks, in large rafts, of which we constructed, for our fort, an immense pen, two hundred feet long, and sixteen ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... and I will give you a crooked six-pence," said Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you run and tell me, because it is ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... audience and a disguise assumed by daylight to deceive the searching eyes of two strangers. The first article of dress which she put on was an old gown of her own (made of the material called "alpaca"), of a dark-brown color, with a neat pattern of little star-shaped spots in white. A double flounce running round the bottom of this dress was the only milliner's ornament which it presented—an ornament not at all out of character with the costume appropriated to an elderly lady. The disguise of her head and face was the next object of her attention. She fitted and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the spirit of love. Oh, that it could have remained so forever! There was not a painted cheek in Eden, nor a bald head, nor a false tooth, nor a bachelor. There was not a flounce, nor a frill, nor a silken gown, nor a flashy waist with aurora borealis sleeves. There was not a curl paper, nor even a threat of crinoline. Raiment was an after thought, the mask of a tainted soul, born of original sin. Beauty was unmarred by gaudy rags; Eve was dressed ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... John Bunyan for weeds. 'N' then Mrs. Macy just pounced on the last girl for her trundle-bed, 'n' Mrs. Jilkins was pretty mad at there bein' no more girls after the last one 'n' she give a sort o' flounce 'n' said 'Josephus,' 'n' Miss White give a sort o' groan 'n' said 'Fox' in a voice like death. 'N' then come the time!—Mrs. Davison was No. 12, 'n' every one knew it, 'n' every one 'd been lookin' at her from time to time 'n' she hadn't been lookin' at no one, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... out of her house with an angry flounce. What in the world was all this noise about! zzz! zzz! then a thump and a bump and the strangest little noises, more like a falsetto squeak than anything else. This had been going on for the last minute, which is a whole hour for a cricket, and going on while she was ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks

... Box, conceived in a low harmony, in a golden twilight, is a work worthy of Reynolds. The pale and attentive face of the lady makes one think of the great English master's best works; the necklace, the flesh, the flounce of lace and the hands are marvels of skill and of taste, which the greatest modern virtuosos, Sargent and Besnard, have not surpassed, and, as far as the man in the background is concerned, his white waistcoat, his ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... will come later. What I want to know is whether you've got a piece with a hole in it—black, soft, and squashy—with a frill—a flounce, they call it—and I want to tell you right here that it will be a good deal better if you keep a decent tongue in your head and stop puttin' on lugs. ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... wide and rather short skirts, the petticoat worn exposed up to where a full over-skirt or flounce gave emphasis to their hips. The elder ones wore long-sleeved jackets and high-crowned hats, while the young ones wore what looked like low-necked jerseys tied together in front and their braided hair hung from ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... and Mrs. B. One night were sitting down to tea, With toast and muffins hot— They heard a loud and sudden bounce, That made the very china flounce, They could not for a time pronounce If they were safe or shot— For memory brought a deed to match At Deptford done by night— Before one eye appear'd a Patch In ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... upon my senses, as they fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow, were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and the sultriness ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... end of the whole matter is—what? Not by any means what my Ba expects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce 'Catch me blotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in the weakest words and being sure I have only to bid her "understand"!—when I can get "Blair on Rhetoric," and the additional chapter on the proper ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... away, and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with the wearer—to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any more ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... turns away from him. He draws near her again; she disregards him. He gleefully chucks her under the chin, and, retreating a few steps, nods and beckons with fantastic grimaces, while the girl bestows a contemptuous and supercilious look upon his wrinkled visage. She turns away with a flounce, and the old gentleman trots after her with a toothless chuckle. The pantaloon to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... employer, is fined. In another town the awning from a shop window must not exceed a certain length, and you are told of a poor widow, who, having just had a new one put up at great expense, was compelled by the police to take the whole thing down, because the flounce was a quarter of an inch longer than the regulations prescribed. You hear of a poor man laboriously building a toy brick wall round the garden in his Hof, and having to pull it to pieces because ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... divided exactly into two halves. She had a collar round her neck of native manufacture, made of beautiful red and yellow feathers; and on her head a very fine Leghorn hat, ornamented with artificial flowers from Canton, and trimmed round the edge with a pendant flounce of black lace; her chin lying modestly hidden behind a whole bed of flowers that bloomed on her mountain bosom. In somewhat striking contrast to all this finery were the clumsily accoutred feet, and stout, ill-shaped, brown, unstockinged legs, which the shortness ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... I was still clutching my basket, though all the mushrooms had fallen out, and my foot was through a torn flounce, and my hat hanging on my neck. My mouth was dry. For a moment I couldn't get a word off my tongue; and then, "He fell, he fell!" I said, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... as nimble as her fingers. She used them both lightly. Would tear the flounce off her too lacy petticoat to bind up a messenger boy's cut finger, and no scarf-pin that came within three feet of her was immune from her quick touch. The only hour that ever struck for her was sex o'clock. The unmentionable lay mentioned ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... troubles was rapidly drawing nearer to the mill, and soon, to her inexpressible delight, she saw Bob coming to meet her. She had heard the flounce, and, feeling more secure from her pursuer, had dropped her pace to a quick walk. No sooner did she reach Bob than, overcome by the excitement of the moment, she flung herself into his arms. Bob instantly ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... verse: Verbum personale, a verb personal, Concordat—ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps—cum Nominativo, with its nominative, Genere, i' point o' gender, numero, O' number, et persona, and person. Ut, Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and, Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah! Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. You see the trick on't though, and can yourself Continue the discourse ad libitum. It takes up about eighty thousand lines, A thing imagination boggles at: And might, odds-bobs, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... giving a great flounce, "to be sure I don't! Catch me loving any man! I told him last night I didn't; but it didn't do a bit of good. I used to think that man was bashful, but I declare I have altered my mind; he will talk and talk till I don't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... flowers, and blue sheafs, two black and blue flat feathers, pins, bought for Court, and a pair of pearl earings, the cost of them—no matter what—less than diamonds, however. A sapphire blue demi-saison with a satin stripe, sack and petticoat trimmed with a broad black lace; crape flounce, & leave made of blue ribbon, and trimmed with white floss; wreaths of black velvet ribbon spotted with steel beads, which are much in fashion, and brought to such perfection as to resemble diamonds; white ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... that?" asked Francisca, serenely, holding the rich corded silk at arm's length, and half closing her eyes as she readjusted the deep flounce of Spanish lace. "Remember, we shall ride and dance and play games together for a week with all of you, dear friends, before I go away with him. I shall know him quite well by that time. And did not my father know him when he was a ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... square inch of cloth to be seen on any part. In the centre stood a magnificent finely spun barley-sugar windmill, two feet and a half high, with a spacious sugar foundation, with a cart and horses and two or three millers at the door, and a she-miller working a ball-dress flounce ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... Dick, jumping to his feet when he saw her. No more than that; but Pilar was woman enough to understand the value of the compliment; and she smiled, patting the flounce of her mantilla into still more ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Spanish point. Colbert had three women as coadjutors when he started lace-making in France. It was because Josephine loved point d'Alencon that Napoleon revived it. Eugenie spent $5,000 for a single dress flounce, and ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.

... He has as good as given his connivance to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, or flounce in the robes of magistracy, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... M'riar accepted the season as one beneficial to trade; production taking the form of a profusion of little muslin dresses for small girls at Christmas Trees and parties with a Conjurer—dresses in which the fullest possibilities of the human flounce became accomplished facts, and the last word was said about bows of coloured ribbons. To look at them was to breathe an involuntary prayer for eiderdown enclosures that would keep the poppet inside warm without disparagement ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... were to be sewn together, the insertion being at the back. Take the first loop, and the centre stitch of the first scallop, on the needle, and work 1 s c to unite them, 3 c s, s c the next loop and centre stitch of the next scallop, o 4 c s, s c the next loop and centre of first scallop in next flounce together, 3 c s, s c next loop and next scallop, o * 4 c s, s c next loop and next scallop, 2 c s; take the next loop on the needle without the scallop, and s c once round it, 2 c s, s c the next loop ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown

... flounce, and shawl, if there is no possibility of their being sold. Also all other fine articles return me, save the dresses which, with prices lowered, may ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... though the former word cannot well be predicated of the latter. So in the following examples: "Let these conversation tones be the foundation of public pronunciation."—Blair's Rhet., p. 334. "A muslin flounce, made very full, would give a very agreeable flirtation air."—POPE: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... still for a moment, then she got up weakly. "Doesn't look much like a wedding-dress now," she murmured. "It's no use doing anything to it. It's done for." She wiped the inkstand on a stained flounce before setting it on the table. "Now," she said, as though some one were present who would disapprove, "I give it to her good. I better fetch her in and have it done before they ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... even a place like Saint-Juliot exist? Or a Vallency Valley With stream and leafed alley, Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist? ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... she said. "That flounce of your mother's out of the room was certainly as much like old times as if the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... a moment's bridling, she whirled back with an angry flounce of her draperies. "The gallery, then, dog! I shall reach my lord's ear from that, which will be ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... of which was the right of discovery. Molly never thought of disputing those rights. She looked up to pretty, wayward, impulsive Bessie Raeburn as to a superior being,—an angelic deliverer. In her half-adoring gratitude and love, she could have "kissed the hem of her garment," or the lower flounce of her pretty organdie dress. She would often say, "O, where would I have been now, if it had not been for you, dear Bessie? In a pauper's grave,—or worse, in prison,—or worse still, on the streets, a wicked, lost girl, loving nobody, and only knowing of God and Jesus by hearing their ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... with an admirable dispassionateness, as if I were talking of some one else, as, armed in full panoply, I stand staring at my white reflection in a long mirror let into the wall—staring at myself from top to toe—from the highest jasmine star of my wreath to the lowest edge of my Brussels flounce. "If I were very fat, I might fine down; if I were very thin, I might plump up; if I were very red, I might grow pale; if I were—hush! here are the boys. I would not for worlds that they should ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever . . . Again, oh, what did I see in that blessed sixth of John: Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out. I should in those days often flounce toward that promise as horses do toward sound ground that yet stick in the mire. Oh! many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for this blessed sixth of John . . . And, again, as I was thus in a muse, that Scripture also came with great power upon my spirit: Not by works of righteousness ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... exclaimed, turning with a bouncing flounce and looking straight at the Major. "Marry Pennington! Why, she shan't, John. That's all there is of it. We object and that settles it. Why, what the deuce can she ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... from rainbows, ere they drop in showers, A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs. Nay, oft in dreams invention we bestow To change a flounce or add ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... no skirt could sweep the pavement, or lie in rich folds at the bottom of a carriage, unadorned by an imposing flounce that almost covered the robe; a little later, the one sober flounce was driven into obscurity by twenty coquettish small ones; and these were displaced by primly puffed bands; which gave way to fanciful "keys" running up the sides of the dress ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... quality of beauty, noble, spirited, and yet wistful, which requires a most expensive setting of simplicity. And that was why Isabel opened her coat. If Captain Hyde had admired her in her Chilmark muslin, what would he think of flounce and fold of rose-point of Alencon under Yvonne's perfumed furs? And then she blushed again because the yearning in his eyes made her wonder if he cared after all whether she wore lace or cotton. Everything was ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... can imagine it a little, imagine what it must be, to an out-door man like him, to be shut up in that one room, packed in with all the frilly duds Mrs. Opdyke has stuffed in around him. Really, I'd feel exactly like a mutton chop in a tissue-paper flounce, myself. The frills add to the ignominy. Why can't she let him have the good of all the bare, empty space he can get, even if ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... to mention marriage; but was always answered with a slap, a hoot, and a flounce. At last he began to press her closer, and thought himself more favourably received; but going one morning, with a resolution to trifle no longer, he found her gone to church with a young journeyman from the neighbouring shop, of whom she ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... clinging to our souls; and Sara now stood, pale and aghast as the others, looking at that fateful, shattered glass! The baby, thus rudely awakened, set up a lively scream, which broke the spell of awed silence that seemed to have held them all until now. Molly, with a flounce of resignation, cried out,— ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... needle?" She showed a torn length of lace-trimmed flounce. "I caught it on a rocker in my room. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... out Kate Sencerbox, shortly, "you've stitched that flounce together with a twist ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... not a beauty in the ordinary sense of the Occident, she certainly was when dressed in her national garb, as I had found to be the case with the Russian peasant girls. Her loose sack, of a medium but brilliant blue woolen material, fell low over a petticoat of the same terminating in a single flounce. Her long black hair was carefully braided, and fell from beneath an embroidered cap of crimson velvet with a rounded end which hung on one side in a coquettish way. Her neck was completely covered with a necklace which descended to her waist like a breast-plate, and consisted of gold coins, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... print, sometimes of bright colors. Under this one always sleeps. Over the bed, from low head-board to foot-board, is stretched by day the uppermost covering. Ours was of maroon cotton flannel, bordered in front by a flounce intended to be ornamental. The custom is to furnish clean cases and pillow-slips once a month, and it is difficult to secure more ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... of soft white over a white satin slip. It should be cut low in the corsage, and have no sleeves. A touch of colour in the shape of loops of small pink roses at the foot, heading a triple flounce of white, and on the shoulders and around the top of the bodice. You know for a portrait, madame, you want no epoch-making effect. It should be quite simple, so that in the years to come it may still please the eye as a ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... the good name of a good woman went through the mud like a white flounce torn and dragged and unnoticed. For of course Charity never dreamed that any one was giving such importance to the coincidence of her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes



Words linked to "Flounce" :   goffer, frill, gauffer, jabot, gait, adornment, walk, furbelow, ruffle



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org