flop
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /flɒp/
ipa: /flɑp/
ipa: /flɔp/
rhymes: -ɒp
Forms: form: flops
form: flopping
form: flopped
form: flopped
Etymology: Recorded since 1602, probably a variant of flap with a duller, heavier sound
Senses: examples: text: He flopped down in front of the television, exhausted from work.
text: There was [in the clock in Lyons Cathedral] a centre puppet of the Virgin Mary; and close to her, a small pigeon-hole, out of which another and a very ill-looking puppet made one of the most sudden plunges I ever saw accomplished: instantly flopping back again at sight of her, and banging his little door violently, after him.
ref: 1846, Charles Dickens, “Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 19:
glosses: To fall heavily due to lack of energy.
examples: text: The tired mule flopped its ears forward and trudged on.
glosses: To cause to drop heavily.
examples: text: The latest album flopped and so the studio canceled her contract.
glosses: To fail completely; not to be successful at all (of a movie, play, book, song etc.).
examples: text: It starts with Chris Paul, because Blake didn't really used to flop like that, you know, last year.
text: While Stern chastised Vogel for on Thursday calling the Heat "the biggest flopping team in the NBA," he did intimate that he sees merit in the sentiment.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To pretend to be fouled in sports, such as basketball, hockey (the same as to dive in soccer)
examples: text: The brim of a hat flops.
glosses: To strike about with something broad and flat, as a fish with its tail, or a bird with its wings; to rise and fall; to flap.
examples: text: Both players flopped sets! Cards dealt on the flop: Q95. Player A's hole cards: 55 (making three of a kind: 555). Player B's hole cards: QQ (making three of a kind: QQQ).
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: To have (a hand) using the community cards dealt on the flop.
examples: text: […] not just the old material goal of "three hots and a place to flop," […]
ref: 1969, Howard E. Freeman, Norman R. Kurtz, America's Troubles: A Casebook on Social Conflict, Prentice-Hall, page 414:
text: They have opened up crypts and basements as immense pads where vagrant and impoverished hippies can flop for the night.
ref: 1973, Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal, Pantheon Books, page 135:
glosses: To stay, sleep or live in a place.
examples: text: The possibilities of this type of shot are almost limitless. By quartering the screen and duplicating and flopping the picture, a kaleidoscopic effect is achieved.
ref: 1968, Advertising Techniques, volumes 4-5, page 28:
text: […] in order to flop the image left-to-right, or all printing will appear reversed.
ref: 1986, Functional Photography, volumes 21-23, page 58:
glosses: To flip; to reverse (an image).
examples: text: I've been incarcerated going on 9½ years. I have never been back on the streets or given a chance to prove myself to society. Every time I would meet the parole board they would flop me telling me I would be a threat to society.
ref: 1986 April 12, anonymous author, “One Day I'll Write a Book on This”, in Gay Community News, page 4:
glosses: To deny someone parole.
Derived terms: sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: bellyflop
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: flop down
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: flop for
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: flophouse
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: flopover
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: flopper
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: floppingly
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: floppy
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: floptastic
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: fly and flop
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: mop-and-flop
sense: terms derived from flop (verb)
word: that's the way the mop flops