flapper

English

A flapper (young woman), 1929

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈflæpɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æpə(ɹ)

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: by the late 19th century in England "flapper" could mean either a very young prostitute: 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'".

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.". The word also suggested a spirited girl of unconventional or mischievous disposition. An advertisement in The Times 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...". 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."

Noun

flapper (plural flappers)

1. (colloquial, historical) A young girl usually between the ages of 15 and 18, especially one not "out" socially.
   • 1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 16, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan:

     Stud's eyes roved. Plenty of girls, most of them young flappers, Loretta's age. Only a couple of years ago they were kids.

2. (colloquial, chiefly historical) A young woman, especially when unconventional or without decorum or displaying daring freedom or boldness; now particularly associated with the Jazz Age of the 1920s. [from 19th c.]
   • 1910, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “The Baker’s Dozen”, in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 107:

     I paid violent and unusual attention to a flapper all through the meal in order to make you jealous. She's probably in her cabin writing reams about me to a fellow-flapper at this very moment.

   • 1920 May 27, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “The Offshore Pirate”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published September 1920, →OCLC, page 13:

     "Now," said the young man cheerfully to Ardita, who had witnessed this last scene in withering silence, "if you will swear on your honor as a flapper—which probably isn't worth much—that you'll keep that spoiled little mouth of yours tight shut for forty-eight hours, you can row yourself ashore in our rowboat."

   • 1922 April 16, Margaret O'Leary, “More Ado About the Flapper”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Concern—and consternation—about the flapper are general. She disports herself flagrantly in the public eye, and there is no keeping her out of grown-up company or conversation.

   • 2002, Rena Sanderson, “8: Women in Fitzgerald's Fiction”, in 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

• flapperdom
• flapperesque
• flapperhood
• flapperism
• flapper pie

 

Translations

young unconventional woman

• French: garçonne f
• Italian: maschietta (it) f
• Russian: флэппер (flɛpper)

See also

• modern girl

Etymology 2

From flap (verb) +‎ -er.

Noun

flapper (plural flappers)

1. One who or that which flaps.
   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan):

     It seems the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons who are able to afford it always keep a flapper (the original is climenole) in their family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk abroad, or make visits, without him. And the business of this officer is, when two, three, or more persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresses himself. This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel.

2. (hunting) A young game bird just able to fly, particularly a wild duck.
   • 1904, F. Henry Yorke, "Our American Game Birds: Their Life History and Mode of Hunting Them," Field and Stream, Vol. 9, no. 3 (July 1904), pp. 255—56:

     Small fish, and frog and fish spawn are also eaten, and the ducklings feed upon many species of animalculæ, flies, pollywogs and worms, etc., disturbed by heavy rains which wash the banks, while the young ducks are passing to the "flapper" stage.

3. A flipper; a limb of a turtle, which functions as a flipper or paddle when swimming.
   • 1876, Arabella B. Buckley, A Short History of Natural Science and of the Progress of Discovery from the Time of the Greeks to the Present Day:

     the flapper of a porpoise

   • 1878, William H. G. Kingston, The Three Admirals‎^[2], 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.

4. (plumbing) A flapper valve.
   • 2004, David Day, Albert Jackson, Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-to, page 356:

     In this case, slide the collar of the flapper over the overflow tube until it seats against the bottom of the flush valve.

5. (slang) The hand.

Derived terms

• fire flapper
• flapper board
• flapper skate
• flapper valve

Etymology 3

From flap (noun) +‎ -er.

Noun

flapper (plural flappers)

1. (climbing) Any injury that results in a loose flap of skin on the fingers, making gripping difficult.

See also

• flappergast

Further reading

• flapper on Wikipedia.Wikipedia