[Alteration of FROUNCE v.: cf. FLOUNCE sb.2]
† 1. trans. To curl, frizz, trim. Obs.
1672. Wycherly, Love in a Wood, III. iii. Let me Prune, and Flounce my Perruque a little for her.
2. To adorn or trim with a flounce or with flounces; also transf.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 129, 28 July, ¶ 5. She was flounced and furbelowed from Head to Foot; every Ribbon was wrinkled, and every Part of her Garments in Curl, so that she looked like one of those Animals which in the Country we call a Friezeland Hen.
1737. Pope, Let. in the Style of a Lady, Wks. 1824, VIII. 406. Do not you think they have got into the most preposterous fashion this winter that ever was, of flouncing the petticoat so very deep, that it looks like an entire coat of lutestring?
1749. H. Walpole, Lett. (1857), II. 170. He has demolished all his paternal intrenchments of walls and square gardens, opened lawns, swelled out a bow-window, erected a portico, planted groves, stifled ponds, and flounced himself with flowering shrubs and Kent fences.
1814. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life (1870), I. 274. I like none of this but the flouncing, which is pretty, and I shall bring three or four yards of striped muslin to flounce my gowns and yours.
1818. Blackw. Mag., III. 403/1, ‘The Mad Banker of Amsterdam.’
| The mistress of Mynheer must be a bouncer, | |
| Fat is the chief commodity he seeks, | |
| It must take scores and scores of yards to flounce her; | |
| She must have pounds of chin, and pounds of cheeks. |
1841. Disraeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 523. The tarnished piece was drawn out of the theatrical wardrobe; once in vogue, and now neglected, the body, not yet moth-eaten, might be flounced with new scenes.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II. lix. 309. Twixt two fields of rock we drive into a clean seaport village, above which the ruined castle frowns, its basement flounced round with trees.
absol. 1784. Bage, Barham Downs, I. 171. The young ladies had each of them two years of a Winchester boarding-school, from whence they returned so genteel, and so perfectly accomplished, that they could trim, flounce, and furbelow to admiration; and could even make up their everyday caps.
