aflap — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Flapping.

   Usage

   • not-comparable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   1894, George Lansing Raymond, The Aztec God, Act 3, in The Aztec God and Other Dramas, New York: Putnam, 1908, p. 66, and she / A vulture feasting with foul wings aflap

   nodding her head firmly, headscarf aflap

   […] a woman in a gaberdine comes staggering out from the roadside, hands aflap, shoeless but on the run.

2. Filled (with something flapping).

   Usage

   • not-comparable

   Examples

   They walked up Main Street, which was all aflap with American flags […]

   More examples (1)

   Clothes-drying lofts, open frameworks on the flat roofs of houses, all aflap with clothes, sheets, kimono, reminded me of Canaletto’s pictures of Venetian life […]

   […] the buses bursting with cackling passengers three times over capacity and aflap with chickens.

3. Showing excessive excitement or anger.

   Usage

   • Colloquial
   • not-comparable

   Synonyms

   in a flap

   Examples

   1977, Niel Hancock, Calix Stay, New York: Fawcett Popular Library, p. 93, “First he says we isn’t welcome, then he’s all aflap cause some of us is gone.”

   More examples (1)

   1994, Bernice Morgan, Waiting for Time, St. John’s, NL: Breakwater, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 53, […] people are barely over our givin’ that extra quota of cod to the French, now they’re all aflap about selling spawny caplin to the Japanese […]