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Flutter   /flˈətər/   Listen
Flutter

noun
1.
The act of moving back and forth.  Synonyms: flicker, waver.
2.
Abnormally rapid beating of the auricles of the heart (especially in a regular rhythm); can result in heart block.
3.
A disorderly outburst or tumult.  Synonyms: commotion, disruption, disturbance, hoo-ha, hoo-hah, hurly burly, kerfuffle, to-do.
4.
The motion made by flapping up and down.  Synonyms: flap, flapping, fluttering.



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"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books



... stopped rocking and leaned forward in her chair to peer more sharply. What was the child—"She's climbing a tree!" breathed Aunt Olivia in undisguised astonishment. Even as she breathed it, there came to her faintly the snapping of twigs and flutter of leaves. Then all was quite still, but she could discern with her pair of trusty Plummer eyes ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... flutter to the floor. "The perfume of a plum petal," he said softly, in English; "the perfume ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... They never wait for the sound of the bell which the good priest rings every day when it is time for them to be fed, but fly down to the pavement whenever they catch sight of a person with a bit of grain. They flutter down by twos and threes, and beg with their best coos for something ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... handful of pages, no matter how much you have made them your own, are at best but an obscure and questionable spoil. Here they are. "Failure"—"Astonishing": take your choice; or perhaps both, or neither—a mere rustle and flutter of pieces of paper settling down in the night, and undistinguishable, like the snowflakes of a great drift destined to melt ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... on the hill, having (as Simpson was to point out several times later) Mentone on its left hand and Monte Carlo on its right. A long winding path led up through its garden of olives to the front door, and through the mimosa trees which flanked this door we could see already a flutter of white aprons. The staff was on the loggia ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various

... the icy silence, Where the glacier's teeth hang white, And even the sun-god Baldur, Looks down in vague affright, You flutter like startled spectres, With a prayer on your lips for the goal— To stand for one thrilling moment At the awful, ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... was out a flutter of excitement was passing through the village, Milly Lord being the first to discover it. She, poor girl! was sitting at her little window listening to the beat of the rain, and the swish of the grasses that grew in her garden ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... shoulder. "He walked up with me—he wants to see you both. But"—her voice dropped to an intense whisper—"he has asked to see Miss Walton first—wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... to tell from the outside. Nothing moved on the well-kept grounds, and the windows didn't show so much as the flutter of a purple curtain. There was no sound. No cars were parked around the house—nor, Malone realized, thinking of "Gone With the Wind," were there any horses ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... away in sprigs of rhyme Until her life's full blossom-time, Flutter (like tremulous little birds) Her small and sweet ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... warm pressure of her fingers. Never before had he so poignantly realized that innate splendor of femininity that was uniquely hers, a quality more potent than any mere beauty. Her look met his straight and frankly, but he heard the breath flutter at her lips, and he thought to read in her eyes a question, a hunger, and a delight. His voice was under rigid ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... moodily from under his dark brows, and noticed the color flutter over her cheek and throat in an adorable way. She had drawn her hand from him, and it rested on the window—a slim brown hand, with a curious ring on one finger—two tiny snakes whose jeweled heads formed the central ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... measured pace at which we were walking, we were obliged to stop every minute to recover our breath. Lucien followed us so eagerly that I was obliged to check him several times. He was surprised at not seeing any living creature, not even those beautiful golden flies which, in Mexico, flutter round every bush. But the north wind was blowing, and the sun was hidden behind the clouds, so that both the insects and birds kept in the deepest recesses of their hiding-places. As we advanced, our road became much steeper, and we were obliged to cling to the shrubs ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... up in her arms and bounded into the air. Her tresses began to lift and rise and spread and stream and flow and flutter. And North Wind and Diamond went flying southward. The sea slid away from under them like a great web of shot silk, blue shot with gray, and green shot with purple. The stars appeared to sail away past them, like golden boats ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald

... She entered into the activities of the household with such amazing zest, it seemed as if we were playing kitchen furniture. While it surprised me how one young girl could so disturb regular working hours and get things generally a-flutter, I could easily see that all she needed was a chance to be herself. That was the point that Kishimoto had to ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... conspire to dress dinner and him so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other. As peacocks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him "my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails to make you a present of himself, and will not be refused, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... last flutter of her dress had disappeared around the bend of the road, he walked ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... dressed, is the most unshapely in the woods. It is stiff and abrupt in its manners and sedentary in its habits, sitting around all day, in the dark recesses of the woods, on the dry twigs and branches, uttering now and then its plaintive cry, and "with many a flirt and flutter" snapping up its ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... a state of repentance and flutter that he could not let me take a decent farewell. The sound of the others' horses had long died away down the hill when he began to tell me what he ought ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the eyes may uncover its pretense. For by this token may be known the real Crotalids from the mock: a small but distinct pit between eye and nostril. Lacking this mark, no ventral crawler in the land of the free need cause a flutter in the most timid breast, with one ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... Hundreds of glow-worms were shimmering in the hedge. The grass-hoppers were whirring in the mielles beyond; a flutter of wings went by overhead. The leaves were rustling gently; a fresh wind was coming up from the sea upon the soft, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... as they flutter down, softly, one by one, whisper soothingly, "Rest, poor heart, rest!" It is as though our mother smoothed our hair, and ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... fair to exclude all but those which are domesticated with us, or which are willing, sometimes, to come and live in our houses. In the country, and very often in towns, our homes are surrounded, at certain seasons, by beautiful birds, that flutter and twitter about in the trees, and sing most charmingly in the bright hours of the early morning, making the spring-time and the summer tenfold more delightful than they would be without them. These birds ask nothing of us but a few cherries or berries now and then, and they pay well for these ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... turkeys suspected danger; they erected their tall brown and grey necks, and looked about them like alarmed sentinels. "They're off!" cried we — but just as they were preparing to run, which they do with great rapidity, one of them was seen to flutter his wings and tumble over, whilst the crack of the rifle proclaimed the triumph of Migo. We rushed through the brush-wood, elated as schoolboys who have shot their first throstle with a horse-pistol, and found the bustard flapping ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... I press the button, no less than six little, picture maids flutter to my door, each begging for the honor of fastening me up the back. How delighted Jack would be to assign them this particular honor for life. Such whispers over the wonders of a foreign-made dress as they struggle with the curious fastenings! (They should hear my lord's ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the great music swells out while you ask the garcon for another bock. Do you remember, father dear, the day that ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... and fly away from him on first sight; and then he bewitches them nearer, and they are filled with pain seemingly, and flutter and fly about as if in ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... in the maiden Spring? Who heard her footfall, swift and light As fairy-dancing in the night? Who guessed what happy dawn would bring The flutter of her bluebird's wing, The blossom of her mayflower-face To brighten every shady place? One morning, down the village street, "Oh, here am I," we heard her sing,— And none had been awake to greet The coming ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke

... condition of the blind man quite melted Lucille; never had she been so strongly affected. She felt a strange flutter at the heart, a secret and earnest sympathy, that attracted her at once towards him. She wished that Heaven had suffered ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... With flutter of swift wings and songs Together rose the feathered throngs, And singing scattered far apart; Deep peace ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed to get me into the house without the knowledge of ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... we came here, and when the amount of our legacy was first promulgated, we were in a terrible flutter. Andrew became a man of fashion, with all the haste that tailors, and horses, and dinners, could make him. My father, honest man, was equally inspired with lofty ideas, and began a career that promised a liberal benefaction of good things to the poor—and my ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... white puff of smoke beside him indicated that the Archibalds had been watching the combat closely. A second, third and fourth followed in rapid succession until suddenly at the fifteenth burst the Taube began to drop and flutter down, like a leaf falling from a forest tree on a quiet October day. Five minutes later, far out in the salient, we saw a second driven down in a straight nose dive, making the third for that day in the vicinity of Ypres. One might watch for months, as I afterwards ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... that time moved not with its usual swiftness,—that the old year lingered with a sad regret, as if loath to pass away and let the new come in. Even now the midnight clock is striking,—eleven,—twelve;—the last flutter of the old year's robe is out of sight, and the new year glides in with noiseless feet, like one who enters the chamber of the dead. These are but melancholy fancies;—because I am sad myself must I put all the world in mourning? The old year did not linger;—it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... he confessed, "I was very angry. It brings great pain to a man to see the thing he loves droop her wings, flutter down to earth, and walk the common highway. It is not for you, dear one, to mingle with that crowd who scheme and cheat, hide and deceive, for any reward in the world, whether it be money, fame, or the love of country. You were ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... departing in sweet odours—that they quite made up for the absence of the flowers. And the wind—no, there was no wind—there was only a memory of wind that woke now and then in the bosom of the wood, shook down a few leaves, like the thoughts that flutter away in sighs, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... sculptor. The branches of the trees were so still, so delicate in their outlines against the pale sky, that they made one uneasy; they seemed to have lost the art of waving, as if leaves should never again flutter upon them. A net-work of low stone walls put loosely together, marking off the absurdly small fields, straggled over the face of the landscape, looking in the curious evening light like a great grey web fantastically spun by some humorous spider. The brown figure of a shepherd ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... in the market, Brigaut, lying in wait, was able to get near her. Though he saw her tremble and turn pale, like an autumn leaf about to flutter down, he did not lose his head, but quietly bought fruit of the market-woman with whom Sylvie was bargaining. He found his chance of slipping a note to Pierrette, all the while joking the woman with the ease of a man accustomed to such manoeuvres; so cool was he ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... men who, as they listened, had seen the ghosts of drowned mariners rising and falling on the moon-rays, or floating with their white faces thrown back while they drank in the music; yea, even echoing the words of the song in whispers like the flutter of birds' wings. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... attention. The English sparrow was first, as usual, to inquire into their right to be out of their own tree. He came near them, alighted, and began to hop still closer. Not in the least startled by his threatening manner, the nearest youngster looked at him, and began to flutter his wings, to call, and to move toward him, as if expecting to be fed. This was too much even for a ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... nasty silence. Smith glowered behind his cocked pistol, and the policeman faced the frowning gun, motionless, waiting for the flutter of Piegan's eye that meant action. The gurgling keg was almost empty ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... once this summer, in the 'great world.' His feet are bare, and leave their tiny impress on the sand—a thousand times more expressive than any Parisian boot; his little bronzed hands are crystallized with the salt air; his dark-brown curls are flecked with sea-foam, and flutter in the evening breeze; his face is radiant—a reflection of the sun, a mystery of life and ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... of entreaty sent a queer flutter to the very depths of her calm soul. But the flutter failed to reach or to titillate the steady eyes. Nor did it creep into the level and self-possessed voice, as Dorcas ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune

... moons hence, to use the language of our story-teller, if she continues as elusive as the wind. I have had glimpses of her, or rather of the flutter of her vanishing raiment. A being with a wonderfully perfect face, clothed in heterogeneous and many-coloured garments, and educated on the amazing fictions with which her foster-father's memory seems to be stored, would ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... the love that must utter While goes a swift omnibus by! (Though sweet is I SCREAM* when the flutter Of fans shows thermometers high)— But if what I bawl, or I mutter, Falls into your ear but to die, Oh, the dew that falls into the gutter Is not more unhappy than I! *[Footnote: Query—Should this be Ice cream, or ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Another flutter of the breath, one slight movement of the mangled hand, and I bent down closer to the poor fellow—closer, because my eyes were so dimmed ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... them. That pictured face on the wall is lovely, but lovelier still may the wife of thy bosom be when she meets thee on the resurrection morn! Those baby cherubs in the old Italian painting—how gracefully they flutter and sport among the soft clouds, full of rich young life and baby joy! Yes, beautiful indeed, but just such a one at this very moment is that once pining, deformed child of thine, over whose death-cradle thou wast weeping a month ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... shall be told, there are imitators. I know it too well; but what lasting influence can be exerted on social life by those who have no real life of their own? They will but flutter in the void, so long as void there be. On the day when the living shall arise to take the place of the dead, they will vanish like ghosts at cock- crow. Shall we never be sufficiently firm in our own faith ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... of Fort Sumter's hundred and forty guns echoing over the sea, and saw the Stars and Bars flutter above the walls of the old fort. He saw Generals Bee and Johnson come back from Manassas, folded in the battle flag for which they had given their lives, to lie in state in the City Hall at the marble feet of Calhoun, the great political ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... One can fancy the flutter of pride in Dorothy's heart at the reading of such honors to her lover, and she settled down to await the turn of events with a lighter heart, while Hancock and Adams, with the other delegates, went on toward Philadelphia, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... eyes of the creature flashed fire with anger, and it tried to turn its clumsy body around to find the speaker. Twinkle and Chubbins looked too, but only heard a flutter and a mocking laugh coming from ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum

... flutter! And good riddance! I just abhor school—notice how I have improved? Last year I ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... news was of the most astounding character, with just enough air of probability, in minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was all he could wish—or rather more—and there was a general flutter in the camp. Of course the Governor-General and one or two others were in the secret, and mightily relished the diversion. But this pleasant and cheering intercourse was drawing to its mournful close. On her way back from Darjeeling, in November, 1861, Lady Canning (not then in Yule's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... they were useless; but on looking over the side I observed cat's-paws playing on the surface of the ocean. Now they appeared, now they vanished, but as yet we had not felt the slightest breath of wind. Presently, however, I saw the dog-vane rise and flutter slightly; ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... fine revenge on the market that had gone against him. She refused to provide the very modest sum he pleaded for to this end, and as the two old Uncle Bunkers were equally obdurate—they said they had known when he married that flutter-budget just how he would end—his ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... flame-drifts wave and flutter; Silence! though the crowd their curses mutter; Silence! through this fiery purgatory God is leading up a soul ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... twice at a distance, while again and again overhead there was the flutter and swish of wings, probably those of the oil-birds circling about the mouth of ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... most animals of the deer tribe, by their fluttering; and, in want of a sufficient force of men, passes may be closed by this contrivance. The Swedes use "lappar," viz. Pieces of canvas, of half the height of a man, painted in glaring colours and left to flutter ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Having said which, Nedda felt unhappy; her Dad was not old! "No, miss; but I'll find out. It'll be in the walnut wing!" But with a little flutter at the thought of thus setting people to run about wings, Nedda murmured: "Oh! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... time that she had done just this thing—or if not the first time, it had never seemed to have any particular significance before. Now, however, Julia felt in her heart a little flutter of satisfaction. Somehow Mark did not seem just a commonplace member of the "Rosenthal gang" to-night, nor did she seem "the Page kid." Mark was a man, and—thrilling thought!—was angry at Julia, and Julia, hanging on his arm, with a hundred street lights flashing on ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... his will, and a faintness coming over him he stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... was Admiral's Row, and had been given to it in 1758, after the capture of Louisbourg and in honour of Admiral Boscawen; but we in Troy preferred to write the apostrophe after the 's'—Miss Sally Tregentil would overpeer her blind and draw back in a flutter lest the Major had ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to her before she heard his step, and turned sharply. She recognized him at once, and he saw the colour slowly rise to her face. She gave no cry of surprise, however, was in no foolish feminine flutter, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... was to accompany Lady Bray, to one of the families acquainted with the Mowbrays; and where it was expected we should meet Olivia, and her aunt. This expectation, which kept my spirits in a flutter the whole day and increased to alarm and dread in the evening, was disappointed. Whether from any real or a pretended accident on the part of the aunt, who sent an apology, was more than I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... gaily to his hammock; but lower sinks JOHN'S head, and even the COMTESSE has the grace to take herself off. MAGGIE's arms flutter near her ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... sits down to such a game, the devil will take good care he sha'n't want cunning or strength. It was ten o'clock instead of nine before he left, which he did with a feeling of triumph. Poor Patty remained behind, and shut up the bar, her heart in a flutter, and her hands shaking, while Dick was locking the front door. She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry; she felt the change which had come over him, and was half fascinated and half repelled ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... new way. For we've got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set by a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches the butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn't jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hope she heard ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... scandalized flutter in this quiet room whose oval portraits of ancestral Sawyers might well have tumbled down at the notion of any one being anything but sober, the boy moved closer to the fire as if the ride had ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple

... humility, too strong in my honesty, too brave, too ignorant; in short, I knew nothing of the matter. We are all of us, more or less, subject to the delusions of vanity, or hope, or love—I—even I!—who thought myself so clear-sighted, did not know how, with one flutter of his wings, Cupid can set the whole atmosphere in motion; change the proportions, size, colour, value, of every object; lead us into a mirage, and leave ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... inconsequential-looking little river. Its contents seemed a trifle too liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank was a small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Th' Brotherhood 'll pay me four dollars a day to sit right here and keep three gages an' a flutter in the stack—go on with yer ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... thoroughly before retiring. Dogs bark at the moon; cats chase rats through openings of the palm-leaf roofs, threatening every moment to fall, pursued and pursuers, down upon the hammocks. Vampires flutter around from room to room, occasionally resting on the tops of the iron partitions, and when they halt, continuing to chirp for a while like hoarse sparrows. Occasionally there will come out of the darkness of the river a disagreeable sound as if some huge animal were gasping ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... Such is the race of Man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In Fortune's varying colours drest: Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chill'd by Age, their airy dance They leave, in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... what could it be but yes? Yet, while her mind sank, like a feather floating downwards in still air, to final, inevitable acquiescence, while the little clock ticked with a fine, insect-like note, and the flames made a soft flutter like the noise of shaken silk, a blackness of chaotic suffering rose suddenly in her, and her thoughts were whirled far away. In flashes, dear and terrible, she saw it—her ruined youth. It rose in dim symbolic ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... for the look upon his face was not good to see; and he was a coward, for he started at the flutter of a night-bird hurrying late to its home in a rock by the wayside. The mist rising from the valley in wreaths of silver gauze startled him again as he rounded the trail to the cabin, and for an instant he stopped and drew his dagger, thinking the ghost he feared was walking thus early. A ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... flown seventy-six miles inland to a height of two thousand four hundred and fifty feet. I dashed inside for the fishingline; Hurley got out the camera. They were a beautiful sight, hovering with outspread wings just above the snow, tipping it with their feet now and then, to poise without a flutter in a sixty-five-mile gale. Hurley secured a couple of "snaps" at the expense of badly frost-bitten hands. Just as I arrived with the line hooked and baited, the birds flew away to the north-east; our visions ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... 't that pits my puir heart in a flutter? And what gars the tears come sae fast to my e'e? If I wasna ettled to be ony better, Then what gars me wish ony better to be? I 'm just like a lammie that loses its mither; Nae mither or friend the puir lammie can see; I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... and then one saw a canvasser on a doorstep. For the most part people went about their business with an entirely irresponsible confidence in the stability of the universe. At times one felt a little absurd with one's flutter of colours and one's air of saving ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... flutter. Emmie persuaded her father to have his bed made finally in the morning-room downstairs, whilst his room upstairs was prepared for Hadrian. This was done, and preparations were going on for the arrival, when, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... learn the cause of a knocking at the outward gate, and on his return was so struck with the forlorn and ghastly aspects of his companions of the watch that he exclaimed, "Pity of my heart, my masters, how like owls you look! Methinks, when the sun rises, I shall see you flutter off with your eyes dazzled, to stick yourselves into the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... magical and unique word. Shakespeare gives us the word, Balzac, sometimes, after pages of vain striving, gives us the word, Tourgueneff gives it with miraculous certainty; but Henry James, no; a hundred times he flutters about it; his whole book is one long flutter near to the one magical and unique word, but the word is not spoken; and for want of the word his characters are never resolved out of the haze of nebulae. You are on a bowing acquaintance with them; they pass you in the street, they stop and speak ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... the sacred boats upon the walls, Horus and Thoth, the king before Osiris; as I mounted and descended with the priests to roof and floor, I longed, instead of the clamour of the bats, to hear the light flutter of the soft wings of the Ba of Hathor, flying from Paradise to this sad temple of the desert to bring her comfort in the gloom. I thought of her as a poor woman, suffering as only women can ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away: "Spanish ships of war at sea! we have ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... which, in spite of common sense, we dare not throw off. For instance, we have company,—a friend from afar (perhaps wealthy), or a minister, or some other man of note. What do we do? Sit down and receive our visitor with all good will and the freedom of a home? No; we (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor in the parlor, set about marshaling the elements of a grand dinner or supper, such as no person ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... think that one so exalted as you are, one whose high position is so rife in the eyes of all men, should have taken pleasure in my company. I will confess to a foolish woman's silly vanity in having wished to be known to be the friend of the Duke of Omnium. I am like the other moths that flutter near the light and have their wings burned. But I am wiser than they in this, that having been scorched, I know that I must keep my distance. You will easily believe that a woman, such as I am, does not refuse to ride in a carriage with your Grace's arms on the panels without a regret. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... grown-up butterfly and found it easy of management. He felt with relief that the mother could have threatened none of the things they held dear. And, indeed, in his imagination, her spirit seemed to flutter over them in the solid, solemn room, reassuring through its ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small flower ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... to the gallant and gay speeches of Bigot, which seemed to flutter like birds round her, but never lit on the ground where she had spread her net like a crafty fowler as she was, until she went almost mad with suppressed anger and passionate excitement. But she kept on replying with badinage light as his own, and with laughter so soft and silvery that ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... him how he did and expressed his gratification at seeing the honored name of Pickles—a power in the commercial world—enrolled among the friends of reform. The appearance of General Divvy put the Mayor in quite a flutter, and when the General told him that he positively must consent to run again, and that he was the only hope of the Reformers, the ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... filled the house after the minister sat down was broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls, it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... despise it," said the captain, filling his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health, chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n—o, no, that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid that does ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... movement another girl, who had been sitting patiently on a low stool near by, rose and put herself in the way of the sunbeam. But too late: already long lashes were a-flutter upon the delicately modelled cheeks of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... the joyous close of the flower adventure. He felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white butterfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way. Nor was he alone; butterfly after butterfly glimmered in the darkness, until at last ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... you get so nothing knocks the breath out of you. I'm just coming to looking round here without feeling all of a flutter. The place did used to turn me endwise at first, it was so white and awesome. I actually hated to set foot within its walls. Seems 's if my fingers was always all thumbs every time I come inside the room. Still, I had to come in though; there were things I had to do ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... family of quails, and watch the conduct of the mother. She will not leave you. No, not she. But she will fall at your feet, uttering a noise which none but a distressed mother can make, and she will run, and flutter, and seem to try to be caught, and cheat your outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken and wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children and the young hopes of her heart; and then will she mount, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... was all in a flutter; the manager was beside himself with joy; bell-boys danced jig steps in the corridors; chambermaids went about with a distracted air—and all because the grand duke, Alexander Melovich, was to arrive on the morrow. It was an epoch-making event. It was better ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field

... said the second swallow. "First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... and when you have done this you make your way up a very steep path, cut in the cliffside, to the town. When you get there you find yourself in the very dullest town I know on the Coast. I remember when I first landed in Clarence I found its society in a flutter of expectation and alarm not untinged with horror. Clarence, nay, the whole of Fernando Po, was about to become so rackety and dissipated as to put Paris and Monte Carlo to the blush. Clarence was going to have a cafe; and what was going to go on in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... lofty tower of Ivan, and from its height looked with eyes of pride on the far-extending city. It was grand, that vision of palatial mansions, but it was mournful in its silence and gloom, the tramp of soldiery its only sound, the flutter of multitudes of birds—ravens and crows, which haunted the city in thousands—its only sign of life. Two days before Moscow had been one of the busiest cities in the world. Now it was the most silent. But the conqueror had this satisfaction, that while abandoned ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... be realized. When hooked, he invariably turns golden. The idea of the series of leaps is to rid himself of the hook, and the man who has made the strike must be of iron or decadent if his heart does not beat with an extra flutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish, glittering in golden mail and shaking itself like a stallion in each mid-air leap. 'Ware slack! If you don't, on one of those leaps the hook will be flung out and twenty feet away. No slack, and away he ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... I mentioned your name to her on purpose, and I could see that the heart of the dear little thing began to flutter at the very sound; and when I bantered her, she blushed, and ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... sonorous phrase it ceased. A flutter of applause ran round the tables. Lanyard mastered a sense of daze that he saw reflected in the opening eyes of the woman as she slipped from his arms. In an instant they were themselves once more, two completely ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... the lover as inhabiting the same house with his unseen love; and pursuing her in it ceaselessly from room to room, always catching the flutter of her retreating presence, always sure that the next moment he ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... attire; buds appear and the leaves shoot; the flowers bloom sending forth their fragrance, that wafted by the breeze perfume the air far and near. The birds sing their best songs of joy; the insects chirp their shrillest notes; butterflies of gorgeous colors flutter in clouds in every direction in search of the nectar contained in the cups of the newly-opened blossom, and dispute it with the brilliant humming-birds. All creation rejoices because a few tears of mother Nature have brought joy and happiness to all living beings, from the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... Dante describes the spirits falling from the bank of Acheron 'as dead leaves flutter from a bough', he gives the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without, however, for an instant losing his own clear perception that these are souls, and those are leaves; he makes no confusion of one with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... cowslip wine. Ragingly he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might. While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter. Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be got ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... Wales was with the Grenadiers at Beau Marais when they came in to rest for a time. One day, while having tea at the Sauvage, Mademoiselle Leonie, sister of the proprietor, came up to me in a perfect flutter of excitement to say that that very evening the Prince had ordered the large room to be prepared for a dinner he was giving to his ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... vertical trunks almost as easily as a woodpecker. It continually utters a harsh, creaking note, somewhat intermediate between that of Paradisea apoda, and the more musical cry of Cicinnurus regius. The males at short intervals open and flutter their wings, erect the long shoulder feathers, and spread out ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... doctor and driver now turned their gaze beyond the lion-headed gateway to the winding walk that passed among the trees up to the old mansion house. Far off, through the great columns of the trees, there might indeed this morning now be seen the flutter of a gown of white. The faint sound of voices might be heard. Mary Ellen, conscientious marketer, was discussing joints and salads with her aunt. And then Mary Ellen, deliberately tying the strings of her bonnet under her chin, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... Neither Mr. Franklin, with his wonderful foreign training, nor I, with my age, experience, and natural mother-wit, had the ghost of an idea of what Rosanna Spearman's unaccountable behaviour really meant. She was out of our thoughts, poor soul, before we had seen the last flutter of her little grey cloak among the sand-hills. And what of that? you will ask, naturally enough. Read on, good friend, as patiently as you can, and perhaps you will be as sorry for Rosanna Spearman as I was, when I ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... "That's nothin' more'n gallantry. It's what's to be looked for whar thar's ladies about, an' is doo to a over-effervescence of sperit, common to the younger males of our species when made gala an' giddy by the alloorin' flutter of a petticoat. Boggs an' Tutt don't honestly mean them bullets none. Also, if you-all is goin' to keep on with your ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... stood up on his hind legs and put his forepaws on the edge of the bowl. As he did this the fish began swimming around swiftly, very much frightened, indeed, just as you may have seen a canary bird flutter in a cage when ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope

... other curiously when at last they met. Jeanne's eyes were sparkling and her cheeks burning, and her whole little person in a flutter of joyful excitement, and yet she couldn't speak. Now that the little cousin was there, actually standing before her, she could not speak. How was it? He was not quite what she had expected; he looked paler and quieter than any boys ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... "Otway's devoted wife to the life!" murmured the company, in a flutter of genuine admiration—forgetting themselves, these Sir Plumes and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... carried neither name nor initials on its lining; and lacked every least hint as to its ownership—or so it seemed until the prying fingers of P. Sybarite turned down the leather and permitted a visiting card concealed therein to flutter ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... the table in such a flutter of excitement that she could hardly eat, but she gazed with intense satisfaction on her guests. Robert sat on her right hand, contrasting Aunt Linda's pleasant situation with the old days in Mrs. Johnson's kitchen, where ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... seeking my favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men immediately. No experience was required, and the wages were to be two dollars a day. With a number of others I pressed forward, was interviewed and accepted. The same day we were marched in a body to the railway ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... flight is present throughout his music. Throughout it, one hears the beating of wings. Sometimes, it is the light flutter of glistening ephemeridae that wheel and skim delightfully through the limpid azure. Sometimes it is the passionate fanning of wings preparing themselves for swift sharp ascents. Sometimes, it is the drooping of pinions that sink brokenly. For all these pieces are "Poemes ailes," flights toward ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... breeze quickening the air upon the uplands beyond old Morlaas, to whip the flags into a steady flutter and now and again flick a dark tress of hair ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... mercy, without manifold mercy and unless mercy abounds towards him. He cannot stand if mercy doth not compass him round about, nor go unless mercy follows him. Yea, if mercy that rejoiceth against judgment doth not continually flutter over him, the very moth will eat him up, and the canker will consume him (Job 4:19). Wherefore it is necessary to the making of Israel live and flourish, that everlasting mercy should be over his head, and everlasting mercy under his feet, with all the afore-mentioned mercies, and more ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... quickly published to that Independent manifesto—not only that by A. S. or Adam Steuart (ante, p. 25), but various others. When it became known, however, that Mr. Edwards also was preparing an Answer, it was expected to beat them all. There was a flutter of anticipation of it among the Presbyterians; but it was rather slow in coming. "There is a piece of 26 sheets, of Mr. Edwards, against the Apologetick Narration, near printed, which will paint that faction [the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various

... feathers, breaking up, six or eight feet high, among a wilderness of sensitive plants, scarlet-flowered dwarf Balisiers, {81a} climbing fern, {81b} convolvuluses of every hue, and an endless variety of outlandish leaves, over which flutter troops of butterflies. How the seeds of the plants and the eggs of the insects have been preserved, who can tell? But there their children are, in myriads; and ere a generation has passed, every dead gray stem will have disappeared ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... wild barren country, I can form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me that all the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond Hyde Park," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "all is a desert." All that part of the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in our conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not one prospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom to kingdom, lands to seas, making an image ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... the minds of those who have given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated the laws of God and man; and therefore, when they are separated from their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived, and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have been purified by ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the end, however, they caught her: and the wife said, 'Shall I kill her at once?' 'No,' cried he, 'that is letting her off too easily: she shall die a much more cruel death; I will eat her.' But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck and cried, 'Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!' With that he could wait no longer: so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, 'Wife, strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.' And the wife ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... she crossed over, meaning to nod and smile at least. Trix saw her first, and suddenly became absorbed in the distant horizon. Tom apparently did not see her, for his eyes were fixed on a fine horse just prancing by. Polly thought that he had seen her, and approached with a curious little flutter at her heart, for if Tom cut her she felt that her cup would ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... sitting on the seat, and I write, scores of times, 1848. I write this date criss-cross, in all possible fashions, and wait until a workable idea shall occur to me. A swarm of loose thoughts flutter about in my head. The feeling of declining day makes me downcast, sentimental; autumn is here, and has already begun to hush everything into sleep and torpor. The flies and insects have received their first warning. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... he strode down the path he carried with him the memory of a perfect oval face smiling at him past the tragic figure of the Bajan woman. He went blindly, scarcely aware of the sun-mottled trail his feet were following, for his wits were a-flutter and his heart was leaping to some strange intoxication that grew with ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who had flown to his tree-top, was still as all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings; he sat without ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... would surpass their powers of comprehension. In any case it would be a mere allegorical investiture of truth, a parable, or a myth that would be of any good to them. There must be, as Kant has said, a public standard of right and virtue, nay, this must at all times flutter high. It is all the same in the end what kind of heraldic figures are represented on it, if they only indicate what is meant. Such an allegorical truth is at all times and everywhere, for mankind at large, a beneficial substitute for an eternally unattainable truth, and in general, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... if they sought to follow through the park the visions of her youth. Through the open window every now and then came a breath of air laden with the odor of grass and the perfume of flowers. It made her white locks flutter around her wrinkled forehead and old memories float through ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... boys made little water-mills to be run by the force of the stream. We call them 'flutter-wheels.' But I made one so curious that it beat them all," ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... marsh'lling clouds unite, Like thick battalions halting for the fight; The sun sinks back, the tempest spirits sweep Fierce through the air and flutter on the deep. Till from their caverns rush the maniac blasts, Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts, And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train, Rear their white heads, and race along ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... old fellow," replied my husband. "That's my wife's little flutter. Dare say the poor fool has had to promise her priest to make ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... silk, old lace, and a white Indian shawl. Miss Prunty had on her starchiest collar and most formal tie. Goneril saw it was necessary that she, likewise, should deck herself in her best. She was too young and impressionable not to be influenced by the flutter of excitement and interest which filled the whole of the little cottage. Goneril, too, was excited and anxious, although Signor Graziano had seemed so old and like a coffee-bean. She made no progress in the piece of embroidery ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... led my horse; and his horrible visage glared into my eyes through the strange, wan light that flows between the departure of the sinking moon and the flutter of the morning when it cannot see its way. I strove to look at him; but my scared eyes fell, and he bound his rank glove across my poor lips. "Let it be so," I thought; "I can ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore

... out and the acceptances came in. The English were flattered. Count Malagaski was buoyed by new hopes and the daughters were in a day-and-night flutter, for neither of them had ever come within speaking distance of the real young man ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... George William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr. Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're going to have two young Greek gods among us.' ... On a bright morning in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, as I was coming down from the Eyrie to the Hive, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... things of the field and wood seemed unafraid of her. At times, returning to where he had left her hidden, he would pause, wondering to whom she was talking, and then as he drew nearer would hear the stealing away of little feet, the startled flutter of wings. She had elfish ways, of which it seemed impossible to cure her. Often the good man, returning from some late visit of mercy with his lantern and his stout oak cudgel, would pause and listen to a wandering ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome

... Shakespeare's text; of whom one ridicules his errors with airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with spits, and boys with stones, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... me truly, if it must be said, Parnassian butterfly, and like the bees Wherein old Plato found our similes. Light rover I, forever on the wing, Flutter from flower to flower, from thing to thing, With much of pleasure mix ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... excitement. I have seen women with nothing important to do come down to breakfast in excitement, give their orders for the day as if they were about running for a fire; and the standard of all those about them is so low that no one notices what a human dust is stirred up by all this flutter ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call

... Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' crosslegged on a chinkapin log koamin' de ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... province through which we were passing, and, after pipes and coffee, and the usual ceremonies, I mounted my horse, and, at the head of my escort, rode out of the mudir's courtyard, when my eye was caught by the flutter of the robes of a woman in a garden across the road. Around the garden ran a high hedge of cactus, and as I leaned forward in my saddle to look through one of the openings, a girl's face presented ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman



Words linked to "Flutter" :   tumultuousness, incident, beat, zip, tempest, nictitate, earthquake, motility, storm, cardiac arrhythmia, blink, stir, upheaval, thump, undulation, travel rapidly, uproar, splash, storm center, storm centre, tumult, wave, motion, fleet, flit, wink, waver, hurry, garboil, turmoil, speed, movement, convulsion, arrhythmia, hoo-hah, nictate, pound, butterfly, flicker, move back and forth, disorder, move



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