aflap en · ADJ
Etymology
From a- + flap.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Flapping.
[…] a woman in a gaberdine comes staggering out from the roadside, hands aflap, shoeless but on the run.
2013, Richard House, “The Hit”, in The Kills, London: Picador, page 806:nodding her head firmly, headscarf aflap
1984, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Auckland: Spiral, published 1985, Part 3, Chapter 7, p. 292:1894, George Lansing Raymond, The Aztec God, Act 3, in The Aztec God and Other Dramas, New York: Putnam, 1908, p. 66, and she / A vulture feasting with foul wings aflap
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(not-comparable) Filled (with something flapping).
Clothes-drying lofts, open frameworks on the flat roofs of houses, all aflap with clothes, sheets, kimono, reminded me of Canaletto’s pictures of Venetian life […]
1962, James Kirkup, chapter 10, in These Horned Islands, New York: Macmillan, page 152:They walked up Main Street, which was all aflap with American flags […]
1908, Eugene Wood, Folks Back Home, New York: The McClure Company, page 46:[…] the buses bursting with cackling passengers three times over capacity and aflap with chickens.
2003, Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin, London: Serpent’s Tail, published 2005, page 118:
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(colloquial, not-comparable) Showing excessive excitement or anger.
1977, Niel Hancock, Calix Stay, New York: Fawcett Popular Library, p. 93, “First he says we isn’t welcome, then he’s all aflap cause some of us is gone.”
1994, Bernice Morgan, Waiting for Time, St. John’s, NL: Breakwater, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 53, […] people are barely over our givin’ that extra quota of cod to the French, now they’re all aflap about selling spawny caplin to the Japanese […]