[f. FLOUNCE v. + -ING2.] That flounces: said chiefly of animals, esp. aquatic animals; plunging, tossing.
1700. Blackmore, Job, 179.
| Canst thou stand Angling on the Banks of Nile, | |
| And with thy Bait Leviathan beguile? | |
| Then strike the bearded Iron thro’ his Jaw, | |
| And thro’ the Flood the flouncing Monster draw? |
1708. Prior, Epil. to Smith’s Phædra & Hippol., 15.
| But, as it is, six flouncing Flanders mares | |
| Are e’en as good as any two of theirs. |
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), VI. Seeing and hearing the roof of a crazy coach groan, crack, and bend, over your hand, beneath the successive flouncing weights of a dozen ponderous passengers.
1837. C. Wheelwright, trans. Aristophanes, I. 332.
| Why beatest thou the sea with flouncing oars, | |
| Most wicked toward th’ Athenian populace? |
fig. 1830. Examiner, 790/1. The heroine of this flouncing trumpery, yclept a tragedy.
