[f. FLOUNCE v.1 + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FLOUNCE.
1601. Deacon & Walker, Answ. to Darel, 190. The gallant in the meane time hee keepes a flouncing and frisking about; as though he would teach the whole world a new tricke in dauncing.
1679–80. Sir C. Lyttelton, in Hatton Corr. (1878), 213. What wth ye flounsing of ye hors and my own endeavors, I soone was free.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. xliv. 133. Assoon as he found himself wounded, he turned Tail on us, and, with great Flouncings, made towards the Shore about half a Mile from us.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VI. 245. To prevent his flouncing, they cut off the tail with an ax, with the utmost expedition.
1874. Blackie, Self-Culture, 10. To make us feel, by a little floundering and flouncing in deep bottomless seas of speculation, that the world is a much bigger place than we had imagined, and our thoughts about it of much less significance.
