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Flounce   /flaʊns/   Listen
Flounce

noun
1.
A strip of pleated material used as a decoration or a trim.  Synonyms: frill, furbelow, ruffle.
2.
The act of walking with exaggerated jerky motions.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flounce" Quotes from Famous Books



... having a gorgeous home on Fifth Avenue with all these Carthage people rocking on the front porch. Probably some warm evening when Mrs. Hotel Vanderbilt was driving by in her new barouche, it would be just like Roscoe Detwiller to turn in at the gate, flounce down on the top step and sit there with his vest unbuttoned, and his seersucker coat under his arm, while he mopped the inside of ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes

... her over, from the top of her dishevelled head, down the lovely line of the shoulder, following the curve of the hip, the draped form of the long limb, right down to her fine ankle below a torn, soiled flounce; and as far as the point of the shabby, high- heeled, blue slipper, dangling from her well-shaped foot, which she moved slightly, with quick, nervous jerks, as if impatient of my presence. And in the scent of the massed flowers I seemed to breathe her special and inexplicable charm, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... realized I was still clutching my basket, though all the mushrooms had fallen out, and my foot was through a torn flounce, and my hat hanging on my neck. My mouth was dry. For a moment I couldn't get a word off my tongue; and then, "He fell, he fell!" I said, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... author of his troubles was rapidly drawing nearer to the mill, and soon, to her inexpressible delight, she saw Bob coming to meet her. She had heard the flounce, and, feeling more secure from her pursuer, had dropped her pace to a quick walk. No sooner did she reach Bob than, overcome by the excitement of the moment, she flung herself into his arms. Bob instantly enclosed her in an embrace so very thorough ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... draw the ocean with a head, Like troubled table-beer—and make it bounce, And froth, and roar, and fling—but this, I've said, Surged in scarce rougher than a lady's flounce: But then, a grander contrast thus it bred With the wild welkin, seeming to pronounce Something more awful in the serious ear, As one would whisper that a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... explained Zoie. "Just as we were introduced, that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt. I turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... all!" said John, with a great flounce as he turned over on the sofa. "I'm not up ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Fisher took John Bunyan for weeds. 'N' then Mrs. Macy just pounced on the last girl for her trundle-bed, 'n' Mrs. Jilkins was pretty mad at there bein' no more girls after the last one 'n' she give a sort o' flounce 'n' said 'Josephus,' 'n' Miss White give a sort o' groan 'n' said 'Fox' in a voice like death. 'N' then come the time!—Mrs. Davison was No. 12, 'n' every one knew it, 'n' every one 'd been lookin' at her from time to time 'n' she hadn't been lookin' at no one, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... pins, bought for Court, and a pair of pearl earings, the cost of them—no matter what—less than diamonds, however. A sapphire blue demi-saison with a satin stripe, sack and petticoat trimmed with a broad black lace; crape flounce, & leave made of blue ribbon, and trimmed with white floss; wreaths of black velvet ribbon spotted with steel beads, which are much in fashion, and brought to such perfection as to resemble diamonds; white ribbon also in the van dyke style, made up of the trimming, which looked ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... swept away by a rise of the waters, so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. Her physiognomy is not distinguished; nez camus, as a Frenchman would say; no illustrious steeple, no imposing tower; the water-edge of the town looking bedraggled, like the flounce of a vulgar rich woman's dress that trails on the sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the wharves, elephantine in bulk and color, her sides narrowing as they rise, like ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... its cleanliness and its Spanish point. Colbert had three women as coadjutors when he started lace-making in France. It was because Josephine loved point d'Alencon that Napoleon revived it. Eugenie spent $5,000 for a single dress flounce, and had $1,000,000 in ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.

... other half Mrs. Goodwin has seen at High Fernby, in Yorkshire, a place belonging to the family of the Rooks, in high preservation. In its original state, it was lined with a rose-coloured lutestring, with a flounce of the same about a quarter deep. The old lady being very notable, found some use for the silk, and used to cover the china which stood in the best parlour with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various

... trade; production taking the form of a profusion of little muslin dresses for small girls at Christmas Trees and parties with a Conjurer—dresses in which the fullest possibilities of the human flounce became accomplished facts, and the last word was said about bows of coloured ribbons. To look at them was to breathe an involuntary prayer for eiderdown enclosures that would keep the poppet inside warm without disparagement to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... searching eyes of two strangers. The first article of dress which she put on was an old gown of her own (made of the material called "alpaca"), of a dark-brown color, with a neat pattern of little star-shaped spots in white. A double flounce running round the bottom of this dress was the only milliner's ornament which it presented—an ornament not at all out of character with the costume appropriated to an elderly lady. The disguise of her head and face ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... it matter? I told her not to bother her head about it, that when we got to New York, or even to Cincinnati or Louisville, I would buy her a whole shopful of dresses. She made no answer to that; but when I had the misfortune to tear her third flounce, she said, that if I went on in that way she would not have a whole gown left when she got to Louisville. 'With a whole one or none at all, Miss,' said I, 'you'll always be a charming creature.' That now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... sanctimonious to have it natural, and she meant to keep her eyes on you, for all you seemed so wrapped up in your own affairs. They think you feel pretty big, I guess, for Miss Pryor said she wasn't agoing to wait to be put down by you, but took particular pains to flounce past you, with her head turned the other way, and never pretending to know you was there. Mind, though, you don't say anything to anybody about it. I am one of that kind that don't believe in making mischief, and if there's anything ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I am very vexed, but I never dreamt but what ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... a pinafore for her doll out of a lace flounce of real old Venetian lace. Dilly said she found it on the floor. 'On the floor, indeed,' I said to her. 'You mustn't use real lace!' She said, 'Why not? It's a real doll!' Lately Dilly's got a way of ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... the stone with an impatient flounce, and took up his box so suddenly that the teeth of ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam

... self-absorbed, to realise that these wonderful gifts out of the blue never seemed to wing their way to Betty or Janet. Yet stop, there had been an exception. Last Christmas each had received an anonymous fairing—Betty, a beautiful little watch, set in diamonds, and Janet, a wonderful old lace flounce. Both registered parcels had come from London, Godfrey Radmore being known at the time to be in Australia. But neither recipient of the delightful gift had ever cared to ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... response to this diplomatic advance, and leant his right elbow on the back of the seat, and his chin on his right palm. He put his left leg over his right leg, and thus his left foot swayed like a bird on a twig within an inch of Helen's flounce. The parasol covered the faces of the just and ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... Adeline Ketchum and her mother coming down the street, all in a flutter of hurry. Adeline is slender and nervous; her elbows jerked out, her chin jerked up, and her skirts switched her thin ankles; Mrs. Ketchum is very stout, and she walked with a kind of quivering flounce. Her face was blazing, and I knew her bonnet was on hindside before—I was sure that the sprig of purple flowers belonged ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... fit and as delicate in color as the dress. In short, Miss Flossy looked as though she might be ready for an evening concert. Moreover, she felt as if she were, or at least she had an uncomfortable consciousness as to clothes. She kept a nervous lookout for the lower flounce whenever the crowd of people surged her way, and brushed vigorously at the arm of the seat she had chosen ere she dared to rest her arm on it. Evidently she had given herself over to the martyrdom of thinking ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... jumping to his feet when he saw her. No more than that; but Pilar was woman enough to understand the value of the compliment; and she smiled, patting the flounce of her mantilla into still more graceful folds ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... is Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... through—M. Charnot somewhat uneasy at entering under false pretenses, as I guessed from the way he suddenly drew up his head. Jeanne seemed pleased; she smoothed down a fold which the wind had raised in her frock, spread out a flounce, drew herself up, pushed back a hairpin which her fair tresses had dragged out of its place, all in quick, deft, and graceful movements, like ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... white; and linseed oil, or Newark cider, may be a good phrase, though the former word cannot well be predicated of the latter. So in the following examples: "Let these conversation tones be the foundation of public pronunciation."—Blair's Rhet., p. 334. "A muslin flounce, made very full, would give a very agreeable flirtation ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... colours from the vernal flowers; To steal from rainbows ere they drop in showers A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a flounce or ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... lace trimmings, etc. 1 blue Marie Louise 300 gros-de-Naples, brocaded with silver taken from the looms of Lyons; cost, without a stitch in it Silver bullion fringe tassels and 200 real lace to match 1 rose-colored satin, brocaded in $400 white velvet, with deep flounce of real blonde lace, half-yard wide; sleeves and bertha richly trimmed with the same rose-colored satin ribbon; satin on each side, with silk cord and tassel; lined throughout body, skirt and sleeves with white silk 1 white satin of exceedingly rich 2500 quality, trimmed with blonde and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... severe authority, "I will not have this talking over the work. Miss Toppings, this whole skirt is an unmitigated muddle. Head-tucks half an inch too near the bottom! No room for your flounce. If you can't keep to your measures, you'd better not undertake piece-work. Take that last welt out, and put it in over the top. And make no more blunders, if you please, unless you want to be put to ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... deal of money," he said one morning in his condemnatory manner. Rosalie looked up from the lace flounce which had just been delivered and gave the little nervous laugh, which was becoming entirely ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... room with dove-gray walls dotted with white, and all other furniture of white enamel, had mahogany chairs of severe simplicity of design, with backs and seats covered with rose-strewn cretonne which extended in a box-plaited flounce to the floor. This was the only touch of color, save a water color or two, in a room overflowing with restfulness and that "charm which lulls to sleep." Willow chairs are pretty and appropriate, ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... the syntax into verse: Verbum personale, a verb personal, Concordat—ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps—cum Nominativo, with its nominative, Genere, i' point o' gender, numero, O' number, et persona, and person. Ut, Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and, Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah! Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. You see the trick on't though, and can yourself Continue the discourse ad libitum. It takes up about eighty thousand lines, A thing imagination boggles at: And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands, Extend ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... ingratiate myself all the more with her; and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you run and tell me, because it is a sign ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... out of the way, a firm tap at the door revealed Jemima, book in hand or with a basket of sewing, announcing quietly that she now had an hour or so at Mr. Channing's disposal; whereupon Jacqueline would give up in despair and flounce away, or resign herself to listen, seated behind her sister's back where she could make faces at it unseen except ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... little, imagine what it must be, to an out-door man like him, to be shut up in that one room, packed in with all the frilly duds Mrs. Opdyke has stuffed in around him. Really, I'd feel exactly like a mutton chop in a tissue-paper flounce, myself. The frills add to the ignominy. Why can't she let him have the good of all the bare, empty space he can get, even ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... purple is being worn. You notice it on the streets. Of course other colors are quite stylish as well—in fact, I saw a lovely thing the other day in olive green albatross, with a triple-lapped flounce skirt trimmed with insert squares of silk, and a draped fichu of lace opening over a shirred vest and double puff sleeves with a lace band holding two gathered frills—but you see lots of purple too. Oh, yes, you do; just take a walk down Twenty-third ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry



Words linked to "Flounce" :   peplum, adornment, goffer, walk, gait, jabot, gauffer, ruffle, furbelow



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