flapper

English
A flapper (young woman), 1929

Pronunciation
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -æpə(r)

Etymology 1
possible etymologies

Possibly from Victorian sporting slang, meaning young wildfowl in August which are full-sized, tender and worthwhile quarry, but are naive and unable to fly properly due to the late development of flight feathers in ducks and geese. Alternative derivations are also suggested. The word "flap" was slang in the 17th century for a prostitute[1]: by the late 19th century in England "flapper" could mean either a very young prostitute[2]: or a teenage girl too old to be a child and too young to be considered 'out' in society: "A 'flapper', we may explain, is a young lady who has not yet been promoted to long frocks and the wearing of her hair 'up'"[3].

The earliest documented use in the sense of "attractive young girl" is in the 1903 novel Sandford of Merton by Desmond Coke: "There's a stunning flapper."[4]. The word also suggested a spirited girl of unconventional or mischievous disposition. An advertisement in the The Times[5] reads: "The father of a young lady, aged 15 – a typical “FLAPPER” – with all the self assurance of a woman of 30 would be grateful for the recommendation of a seminary (not a convent) where she might be placed for a year or two with the object of taming her."

By 1912 the word had apparently both crossed the Atlantic and evolved to mean a slightly older girl: British stage impresario John Tiller defined it for readers of the New York Times as meaning "a girl who has just "come out". She is at an awkward age, neither a child nor a woman..."[6]. The word had clearly caught on, as a Mme. Nordica is quoted using it in the New York Times of January 1, 1913: "...a thin little flapper of a girl donning a skirt in which she can hardly take a step, extinguishing all but her little white teeth with a dumpy bucket of a hat..."

By 1920 in England it clearly meant any young woman of a pleasure-seeking disposition: a Dr R. Murray-Leslie criticized "the social butterfly type...the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations."[7]

Noun

flapper (plural flappers)

  1. (colloquial, now chiefly historical) A young woman, especially when unconventional or without decorum; now particularly associated with the 1920s. [from 19th c.]
    • 1910, Saki, ‘The Baker's Dozen’, Reginald in Russia:
      I paid violent and unusual attention to a flapper all through the meal in order to make you jealous.
    • 2002, Rena Sanderson, 8: Women in Fitzgerald's Fiction, Ruth Prigozy (editor), The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald, page 143,
      F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known as a chronicler of the 1920s and as the writer who, more than any other, identified, delineated, and popularized the female representative of that era, the flapper. Though it is an overstatement to say that Fitzgerald created the flapper, he did, with considerable assistance from his wife Zelda, offer the public an image of a young woman who was spoiled, sexually liberated, self-centered, fun-loving, and magnetic. […] Although she is often seen now as a mere fashion of the bygone Jazz Age, the flapper should be regarded as one of the great authentic characters in American history.
    • 2009, Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America‎, page 125:
      Among McPherson's most passionate and visible advocates were Southern California's young flappers, who turned out in droves to cheer on the evangelist. While most fundamentalists vehemently criticized flappers, viewing them as symbols of moral decay and the decline of Victorian gender identities, McPherson had embraced them. Critics of her Bible college identified the young female ministers with whom she surrounded herself not as holdouts to Victorianism, but as outright flappers. The press even dubbed one of McPherson's most successful young protégés the flapper evangelist.
Derived terms
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

flap +‎ -er

Noun

flapper (plural flappers)

  1. Something that flaps.
  2. A flipper; a limb of a turtle, which functions as a flipper or paddle when swimming.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Buckley
      The flapper of a porpoise.
    • 1878, William H. G. Kingston, The Three Admirals‎, page 46:
      It was still too shallow for the turtle to swim, but it used its four flappers with so much effect against its two assailants, as to give them a thorough shower-bath.
  3. (plumbing) A flapper valve in a toilet-flushing mechanism.
  4. (rock climbing) Any injury that results in a loose flap of skin on the fingers, making gripping difficult.
Derived terms

See also

References
  1. James Mabbe (1572 – 1642), Celestina IX. 110 "Fall to your flap, my Masters, kisse and clip. Ibid. 112 Come hither, you foule flappes."
  2. Barrere & Leland, Dictionary of Slang: "Flippers, flappers, very young girls trained to vice" (1889)
  3. The Times, Thursday, Feb 20, 1908; pg. 15; Issue 38574; col F
  4. Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 edition.
  5. The Times, Wednesday, Jul 15, 1914; pg. 1; Issue 40576; col B
  6. New York Times, March 31, 1912:'Some facts about the ballet'
  7. The Times, Thursday, Feb 05, 1920; pg. 9; Issue 42326; col A
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