[f. as prec. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FLUTTER in various senses; an instance of the same.
1382. Wyclif, Ps. liv. [lv.] 23 [22]. He shal not ȝiue in to with oute ende flotering [Vulg. fluctuationem] to the riȝtwise.
14[?]. Prose Legends, in Anglia, VIII. 185. Drowned in þe floteryngis of þis lyfe.
1627–61. Feltham, Resolves, I. xi. 200. When the Bates and Flutterings of a Conscience within shall blow up coles, and kindle nothing but flames that shall consume me.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840) I. xix. 341. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my very heart, when I looked over these letters, and especially when I found all my wealth about me.
1759. R. Smith, Harmonics (ed. 2), 97. A judicious ear can often hear, at the same time, both the flutterings and the beats of a tempered consonance, sufficiently distinct from each other.
1830. Tennyson, Miller’s Dau., 153.
| I watch’d the little flutterings, | |
| The doubt my mother would not see; | |
| She spoke at large of many things, | |
| And at the last she spoke of me. |
1832. Lytton, Eugene A., II. iv. No fluttering of manner betrayed that he was either dazzled or humbled by the presence in which he stood.
