aflutter
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
- (UK) IPA(key): /əˈflʌt.ə/
- (US) IPA(key): /əˈflʌt.ɚ/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)
Adjective edit
aflutter (comparative more aflutter, superlative most aflutter)
- Fluttering.
- 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and Other Poems[1], London: Chapman and Hall, Book 7, p. 298:
- I can hear / Your heart a-flutter over the snow-hills;
- 1888, W. B. Yeats, “King Gall” in uncredited editor, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, Dublin: M.H. Gill, p. 43,[2]
- They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me—the beech leaves old
- 1949, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces[3], New York: Pantheon, Part 1, Chapter 1, p. 61:
- The winds bared her limbs, the opposing breezes set her garments aflutter as she ran, and a light air flung her locks streaming behind her.
- 1999, Oscar Hijuelos, Empress of the Splendid Season[4], London: Bloomsbury, page 170:
- An electric guitar lick […] imposed itself in his mind as a major symbol of virility and youth, notes rising like scimitars, aftertones aflutter like birds, the bending of a blues note like the rising arc of an erection.
- Filled or covered (with something that flutters).
- 1891, Howard Pyle, chapter 24, in Men of Iron[5], New York and London: Harper, page 223:
- The day being warm and sultry, the balcony was all aflutter with the feather fans of the ladies of the family and their attendants,
- 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana[6], London: Macmillan, Part 4, p. 154:
- Beyond this lie the gardens of Hafiz and Saadi, each containing the poet’s tomb, and many others equally delicious for their cypresses, pines, and orange trees a-flutter with white pigeons and orchestras of sparrows.
- 2000, Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay[7], London: Fourth Estate, Part 6, Chapter 3, p. 489:
- When Sammy returned from Virginia, after an interminable gray trip back up U.S. 1, he found their house in Midwood aflutter with bunting.
- In a state of tremulous excitement, anticipation or confusion.
- 1880, George Washington Cable, chapter 20, in The Grandissimes[8], New York: Scribner, page 155:
- […] she rose, all a-flutter within, it is true, but with a face as nearly sedate as the inborn witchery of her eyes would allow.
- 1930, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, Once in a Lifetime, Act III, in Burns Mantle (ed.), The Best Plays of 1930-31, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931, p. 144,[9]
- […] in breaks Susan Walker a little more aflutter than usual. The picture is wonderful. Seeing her name in lights is wonderful. Everything is just wonderful.
- 2006, A. Mizrachi, Revenge of the Drama Queen, page 77:
- Once inside the house, everything was aflutter until I was safe and sound.
Usage notes edit
Like other adjectives composed of a verb prefixed with a-, this adjective never precedes but always follows the word it modifies.