Flump, verb, (colloquial).—To fall, put, or be set, down with violence or a thumping noise. Onomatopœic. Also to come down with a Flump Cf., Plump and Cachunk.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch Book, ch. v. Chairs were flumped down on the floor.
1865. H. Kingsley, The Hillyars and the Burtons, ch. lxii. Before my mother had been a week in the partly-erected slab-house, the women began to come in, to flump down into a seat and tell her all about it.
Flunk, subs. (American colloquial).—1.
An idler, a Loafer (q.v.) or
Lawrence (q.v.).
2. (Also Flunk-out).—A failure, especially (at college) in recitations; a backing out of undertakings.
1853. Songs of Yale. In moody meditation sunk, Reflecting on my future flunk.
1877. Brunonian, 24th Feb. A flunk is a complete fizzle; and a dead flunk is where one refuses to get out of his seat.
1888. Missouri Republican, 11th Feo. Riddleberger forced the presidential possibilities of the senate to a complete flunk.
Verb (American).—To retire through fear; to fail (as in a lesson); to cause to fail. Cf., Funk.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, IV. Why, little 'un, you must be cracked, if you flunk out before we begin.
1847. The Yale Banger, 22 Oct. My dignity is outraged at beholding those who fizzle and flunk in my presence tower above me.
1853. Amherst Indicator, p. 253, They know that a man who has FLUNKED. because too much of a genius to get his lesson, is not in a state to appreciate joking.
1871. John Hay, 'Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell.' in New York Tribune, Jan. But he never flunked, and he never lied, I reckon he never know'd how.
Flunkey, subs. (nautical).—1. A
ship's steward.
2. (American.)—An ignorant dabbler in stock; an inexperienced jobber.
1862. A Week in Wall St., p. 90. A broker, who had met with heavy losses, exclaimed: 'I'm in a bear-trap,—this won't do. The dogs will come over me. I shall be mulct in a loss. But I've got time; I'll turn the scale; I'll help the bulls operate for a rise, and draw in the flunkies.
3. (American University.)—One that makes a complete failure in a recitation; one who flunks (q.v.).
1859. Yale Lit. Magazine. I bore him safe through Horace, Saved him from the flunkey's doom.
4. (colloquial).—A man-servant, especially one in livery. Hence, by implication, a parasite or Toady (q.v.). Fr., un larbin.
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs; ch. v. You who have no toadies; you whom no cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors.
Whence, Flunkeyism = Blind worship of rank, birth, or riches. Fr., la larbinerie.
1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 23. Our trading classes, becoming richer and more sunk in flunkeyism every day.
Flurryment, subs. (common.)—Agitation;
bustle; confusion;
nervous excitement. [Pleonastic,
from Flurry.]
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. II. Mary and all on em was in a monstrous flurryment.
Flurry One's Milk, verb. phr.
(common).—To be worried, angry,
or upset; To fret ones kidneys
(q.v.); to tear one's
shirt, or one's hair (q.v.).
