Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Fluttering |
FlutteringAdjective1. Moving rapidly and lightly to and fro as of or with wings; "fluttering birds"; "the flittering wings of a fledgling". 2. Streaming or flapping or spreading wide as if in a current of air; "ran quickly, her flaring coat behind her"; "a fluttering scarf"; "flying banners"; "flags waving in the breeze". 3. Having a slight and rapid trembling motion; "a fluttering heartbeat"; "palpitant movements rather than violent eruptions"; "my palpitating heart". Noun1. The motion made by flapping up and down. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "fluttering" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
Synonyms: FlutteringSynonyms: aflare (adj), flaring (adj), flittering (adj), flying (adj), palpitant (adj), palpitating (adj), waving (adj), flap (n), flapping (n), flutter (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Fluttering |
| English words defined with "fluttering": aflare ♦ flaring, Flitting, Flitty, Flutter wheel, Flutteringly, flying ♦ palpitant, palpitating, Perchant ♦ startled ♦ To beat the wing ♦ waving. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "fluttering": Animula, atmospheric boil, atmospheric shimmer ♦ Canary Birds, COURT CARD. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "fluttering": Flacker. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Just have at it, would you, and stop fluttering about (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Fluttering Hearts (1927) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | The wind blowing off the glacier fluttering her gown. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | While the procession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Being, as he was, at a distance from all these veiled women, going to and fro, he saw before him hardly more than a fluttering of shadows |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Most people have felt their heart beat very fast, experienced a fluttering in their chest, or noticed that their heart skipped a beat. Almost everyone has also felt dizzy, faint, or out of breath or had chest pains at one time or another. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Fluttering" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 80.92% of the time. "Fluttering" is used about 173 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 80.92% | 140 | 26,789 |
| Noun (singular) | 10.4% | 18 | 82,615 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 8.67% | 15 | 90,616 |
| Total | 100.00% | 173 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "fluttering": fluttering instability. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "fluttering": a-fluttering, eyelash-fluttering. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
fluttering heart | 28 |
fluttering friend | 10 |
ear fluttering in | 6 |
chest fluttering in | 5 |
ear fluttering | 5 |
fluttering | 5 |
eye fluttering | 4 |
butterflys by fluttering | 3 |
chest fluttering | 3 |
eyelid fluttering | 3 |
butterfly by fluttering | 2 |
fluttering in stomach | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "fluttering"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 振翼 (flutter). (various references) | |
Danish | overfladeinstabilitet (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
Dutch | oppervlakte-instabiliteit (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
French | voltigement. (various references) | |
German | flatternd (flittering, shimming). (various references) | |
Greek | πτερύγισμα (hovering). (various references) | |
Hebrew | התנופפות (flying, waving), רחיפה (flying, hovering). (various references) | |
Indonesian | gelepur (flapping), geleparan, gelepar. (various references) | |
Italian | instabilità di superficie (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 翩翩たる (frivolous), 翩翻たる (frivolous), 翩々たる (frivolous), ちょび髭 (a topknot, at a glance, bits and pieces, by accident, dot, drop by drop, easy, flickering, frizzily, in trickles, intermittently, point, short mustache, simple, small mustache, sparsely, to be dazzled, to flicker, to flit, to litter). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | へんぺんたる (frivolous), へんぽんたる (frivolous), ちらちら (flickering, intermittently). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | utteringflay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | instabilidade de superfície (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
Romanian | fâlfâit (flap), fâlfâire (flutter), care se agitã, care dã din aripi. (various references) | |
Scottish | bruchlas (the fluttering of birds going to rest). (various references) | |
Spanish | inestabilidad de superficie (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
Swedish | Suydaminstabilitet (fluttering instability, surface instability). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Fluttering" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Flutherin, flutring. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "fluttering" (pronounced flu"tering) |
| 6 | -l u" t er i ng | cluttering. |
| 5 | -u" t er i ng | guttering, muttering, puttering, shuttering, sputtering, stuttering, uttering. |
| 4 | -t er i ng | administering, altering, bantering, bartering, battering, bettering, blistering, blustering, bolstering, catering, centering, chartering, chattering, clustering, countering, doctoring, encountering, entering, factoring, faltering, festering, filibustering, filtering, flattering, fostering, frittering, glittering, hectoring, lettering, littering, loitering, mastering, mentoring, metering, mitering, monitoring, motoring, mustering, nattering, neutering, pestering, petering, plastering, reentering, registering, scattering, sculpturing, sequestering, shattering, sheltering, slaughtering, smattering, spattering, splintering, sweltering, teetering, tottering, tutoring, unflattering, watering. |
| 3 | -er i ng | answering, anchoring, angering, auguring, backfiring, badgering, belaboring, beleaguering, bewildering, bickering, blundering, bordering, bothering, brokering, butchering, capturing, censoring, clamoring, clobbering, coloring, configuring, conjuring, conquering, considering, cornering, covering, cowering, culturing, deciphering, delivering, desiring, devouring, diapering, dickering, differing, discovering, disfavoring, disfiguring, dismembering, dithering, doddering, embroidering, empowering, endangering, endeavoring, fathering, favoring, feathering, featuring, figuring, fingering, flavoring, flickering, floundering, flowering, foundering, fracturing, furthering, garnering, gathering, gerrymandering, gesturing, glimmering, glowering, grandfathering, hammering, hampering, hankering, harboring, hindering, hollering, honoring, hovering, hungering, hunkering, injuring, inquiring, laboring, laundering, lawyering, layering, lecturing, levering, lingering, lowering, lumbering, majoring, maneuvering, manufacturing, massacring, maundering, meandering, measuring, minoring, mirroring, mongering, mothering, murdering, murmuring, neighboring, nonmanufacturing, numbering, nurturing, offering, ordering, outnumbering, pampering, pandering, papering, partnering, peppering, perjuring, philandering, picturing, pilfering, plundering, pondering, posturing, powdering, powering, pressuring, proffering, prospering, puncturing, quivering, recapturing, reconsidering, recovering, rediscovering, rejiggering, remembering, rendering, reoffering, reordering, requiring, restructuring, rewiring, rupturing, savoring, scampering, scouring, severing, shimmering, shivering, shouldering, showering, shuddering, simmering, slithering, slobbering, slumbering, smoldering, smothering, snickering, sobering, soldering, soldiering, souring, spiering, sponsoring, squandering, staggering, structuring, suffering, surrendering, swaggering, tailoring, tampering, tapering, tempering, tendering, thundering, tinkering, torturing, towering, transpiring, triggering, uncovering, unwavering, ushering, venturing, wagering, wallpapering, wandering, warmongering, wavering, weathering, whimpering, whispering, withering, wondering, Wuthering, zippering. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-f-g-i-l-n-r-t-t-u" | |
-2 letters: feruling, fettling, fretting, fruitlet, refuting, turtling, uttering. | |
-3 letters: eluting, felting, fetting, flinger, flitter, flutier, fluting, flutter, fueling, fulgent, furling, gittern, glitter, gruntle, grutten, gulfier, gunfire, guttier, guttler, letting, nuttier, retting, ringlet, rutting, tingler, trueing, tuftier, tufting, turfing, turgent, turgite. | |
-4 letters: engirt, englut, engulf, feting, feuing, figure, filter, finger, fitter, fluent, fluter, fringe, futile. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-f-g-i-l-n-r-t-t-u" | |
+2 letters: butterflying, sulfuretting, unflattering. | |
+4 letters: fortunetelling, unflatteringly. | |
+5 letters: fortunetellings, ultracentrifuge. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
