Flounce v.¹

Also 6 flounse, 7 flownce. [Agrees in sense and form with Norw. flunsa to hurry, work briskly, Sw. dial. flunsa to fall with a splash; but as the Scand. words are not known earlier than the 18th c., and the Eng. word not till the 16th c., historical connection cannot be proved.]

  1.  intr. To go with agitated, clumsy, or violent motion; to dash, flop, plunge, rush. Also with away, out, etc.

1542.  Udall, Erasm. Apophth., 183 b. Alexander … flounced me [ethic dative] into the floudde.

1639.  Fuller, Holy War, II. xxviii. (1647), 80. After an exhortation to his army, he commanded them all at once to flownce into the river.

1736–7.  Mrs. A. Granville, in Mrs. Delany’s Life & Corr., 588. Though they [roads] were tolerable in some places, in others we flounced into great holes of ice and snow, enough to swallow up coach and horses.

1761.  Mrs. F. Sheridan, Sidney Bidulph, II. 128. She flounced off the chair to the other end of the room.

1784.  trans. Beckford’s Vathek (1868), 94. No sooner did the outcry of his guards reach him, than he flounced from the water like a carp.

1843.  F. E. Paget, Warden Berkingholt, 233. So saying, Mrs. Carraway flounced off in a passion.

1865.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., IX. XX. ix. 163. Upon which My Lady flounces out in a huff.

1876.  T. Hardy, Ethelberta, xxxi. Picotee flounced away from him in indignation, backing into a corner with ruffled feathers, like a pullet trying to appear a hen.

  fig.  a. 1734.  North, Lives, II. 365. He thereupon resolved to flounce through and did it with great success.

1760.  Foote, Minor, II. Wks. 1799, I. 260. One flower [of speech] flounced involuntarily from me that day.

  b.  To flounce down; to flop down. To flounce over: to turn over abruptly.

1786.  Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 25 Dec. I … fall fast asleep, and escape by mere miracle from flouncing down plump in all their faces!

1852.  Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxxvii. Tom flounced over, untucking and disarranging everything, in a manner frightful to behold.

1855.  Thackeray, Newcomes, II. 299. Rosey’s mamma flouncing down on a chair, beat a tattoo upon the tablecloth with her fan.

  2.  intr. To make abrupt and jerky movements with the limbs or body; to throw the body about; to plunge, flounder, struggle. Also with about, up. Usually said of bulls, horses, or aquatic animals. To flounce it, said of a woman dancing.

1609.  Holland, Amm. Marcell., XVI. xii. 77. After his horse had flounced & floundered with his heeles in the soft and clammie mud, he got out of it at length.

1641.  Shute, Sarah & Hagar (1649), 109. When one hath struck a great fish, he plungeth and flounceth: well, the Angler gives him line, and lets him weary himself, even till he may be taken up with the hand of a childe.

1704.  J. Trapp, Abra-Mulé, III. i. 1292.

c. 1710.  C. Fiennes, Diary (1888), 217. Giving him [my horse] a good strap he fflounc’d up againe tho’ he had gotten quite down his head and all, yet did retrieve his ffeete and gott Cleer off y^e place w^th me on his Back.

1728.  J. Morgan, Algiers, II. iii. 252. He caused to be brought before him all the Male Infants of that Family, and, with his own Hands, cast them into a large Cistern, laughing heartily to behold them flounce about and struggle for Life in the Water.

1779.  Wesley, Wks. (1872), IV. 163. One of them [his post-horses] began to kick and flounce, without any visible cause.

1841.  Catlin, N. Amer. Ind. (1844), I. xvii. 120. Allowed to lead a life of ease and idleness, covered with mantles of blue and scarlet cloth—with beads and trinkets, and ribbons, in which they flounce and flirt about, the envied and tinselled belles of every tribe.

1851.  Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., I. vii. 87. Some of them [women] flounced it in polka jackets; for even to that remote region, the famous dance had found its way!

  transf. and fig.  1655.  Fuller, The Church-History of Britain, XI. viii. § 14. Waters long dammed up, oft-times flownce, and flie out too violently, when their sluces are pulled up, and they let loose on a sudden: so the judicious feared, lest the Convocation, whose power of meddling with Church matters, had been bridled up for many yeers before, should now, enabled with such power, over-act their parts, especially in such dangerous, and discontented times.

1688.  Bunyan, Jerus. Sinner Saved (1886), 60. Wood that is green will rather smother, and sputter, and smoke, and crack, and flounce, than cast a brave light and a pleasant heat. Ibid., 90. It [despair] will make a man his own tormentor, and flounce and fling like a wild bull in a net.

  3.  † To express displeasure or ill-temper by agitated movements. Obs. Also To flounce into a temper.

1702.  Steele, Funeral, II. ii. ’Tis in vain to flounce, and discompose your self and your dress.

1756.  Foote, Eng. fr. Paris, II. Wks. 1799, I. 118. If you flounce, I fly.

1883.  Stevenson, Across the Plains, in Longm. Mag., II. July, 293–4. After trying him on different topics, it appears that the little German gentleman flounced into a temper, swore an oath or two, and departed from that car in quest of livelier society.

  † 4.  trans. To dash or drive with violence; to fling with a flop or splash. Obs.

1583.  Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 37–8.

1714.  Hearne, Duct. Hist. (ed. 3), I. 184. Dr. Burnet supposes his Terreean Crust which had for 1500 Years held in the Waters of the Abyss, was by the Heat of the Sun so parch’d and crack’d, that at last it broke, and by the fall of large Pieces of it into the Abyss, flounc’d up the Water and wash’d off all Creatures.

1719.  A. Smith, Lives of Highwaymen, II. 321–2. Keel-hawl’d; which is fastning a Rope about him just under his Arms, and drawn up to the main Yard-Arm on the Starboard-side, he is flounc’d from thence into the Sea, and just cover’d with the Water, a great Gun is fir’d over his Head, which stuns him; then another Rope is so order’d about him, that the Seamen draw him under the Keel of the Ship to the Larboard-side, and there draw him up.

1794.  Mrs. A. M. Bennett, Ellen, III. 107. She flounced the door in his face.