flipper

Pluralflippers

Formsflippers, flippering, flippered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A wide, flat limb adapted for swimming, found in marine mammals such as whales and in other aquatic animals such as sea turtles.

   The dolphin steered with its flippers as it turned toward the boat.

   Researchers attached a small tracking tag to the turtle's left flipper.

   Similarfin

   Note

   The name is a plain English build, flip plus the -er that makes a doer or a tool, and Saterland Frisian has a close parallel in Flappert, which means both flipper and wing. The limb also lends its name to a verb for slapping the water.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A wide, flat rubber covering shaped like a paddle, worn on the foot for swimming.

   Snorkelers can rent masks and flippers at the dock.

   The diver tightened the strap on her left flipper before rolling backward off the boat.

   Similarfin

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A flat lever in a pinball machine that the player triggers to strike the ball and keep it in play.

   He timed the flipper perfectly and sent the ball shooting up the ramp.

   Some pinball tables add a third flipper halfway up the playfield.

   Note

   Early pinball had none: players shook the whole table to steer the ball through the pins that gave the game its name, as Rebecca J. Rosen recounts in "The Glory of the Pinball Machine" in The Atlantic (2012). Mechanical flippers came later, and at first tables carried more of them than today's, as many as six.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A person who buys a house or another asset and sells it again quickly for a profit.

   Galleries now screen buyers to keep flippers from reselling a young painter's work at auction within months.

   The flipper bought the bungalow in March, repainted it, and sold it for a tidy profit by June.

   Similarspeculator

   Note

   The word usually carries what is being flipped in front of it: house flippers in property, art flippers among collectors. In the art market it is no compliment. Walter Robinson, writing in Artspace in 2014, named young painters such as Jacob Kassay and Lucien Smith as recent favorites of the art flippers, buyers who resell new work fast.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A kitchen spatula, such as the one used to turn pancakes and eggs in a pan.

   She slid the flipper under the pancake and turned it in one quick motion.

   The grill set came with tongs, a fork, and a long metal flipper for burgers.

   Similarspatula, turner

6. 6
   nouncolloquialUScountable

   A handheld remote control for a television.

   He grabbed the flipper and muted the commercials.

   We spent twenty minutes hunting for the flipper before finding it in the fridge.

   Similarremote, clicker, zapper

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A person who flips in any other sense of the verb, such as someone who tosses a coin.

   He worked two summers as a burger flipper at a beach diner.

   Whoever was the flipper tossed the coin, and the other player called it in the air.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   In cricket, a delivery from a leg-spin bowler that spins backward and skids off the pitch with a low bounce.

   The leg-spinner saved his flipper for the final over and trapped the batter in front of the stumps.

   A well-disguised flipper skids through so low that the batter barely gets the bat down in time.

   Note

   Backspin is the whole trick. A leg-spinner's usual delivery grips the pitch and turns, but this one skids on and stays low, so a batter waiting for bounce is beaten underneath. Bowlers keep it as a surprise among their ordinary leg breaks rather than bowling it often.

9. 9
   verbintransitive

   To raise one or both flippers out of the water and slap them down against the surface.

   Humpbacks sometimes roll onto their sides and flipper at the surface, sending up loud splashes.

   The guide pointed out a calf that had been flippering beside its mother for most of the morning.

   Note

   The endings are regular, with no doubled letter: a whale flippers, a calf is flippering, a humpback flippered twice. One flipper or both may come up, and the point is the slap on the surface rather than the swimming stroke, so a turtle simply paddling along is not flippering.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    In stage scenery, a small flat used to support a larger one.

    The carpenter hinged a flipper to the edge of the flat so it could stand on its own.

    Between scenes, the crew swung the flippers in and rolled the whole wall offstage.

    Note

    Stage carpenters set it at a right angle to the flat it serves, giving a lone panel of scenery the strength to stand. Martin Harrison's The Language of Theatre (1998) suggests the name comes from its look: cut out like a piece of profile scenery, it resembles a sea animal's flipper.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    A type of false tooth, usually one worn only for a short time.

    She wore a flipper for three months while her implant healed.

    The dentist took molds of his mouth to make a flipper for the gap in his smile.

    Note

    Dentists treat it as a stopgap that fills a gap in the smile until a lasting replacement is ready. Fitting one is unmistakably dental work: an argument recorded in the Washington Appellate Reports (2005) pointed out that no one can take molds, fabricate and insert flippers into another person's mouth without practicing dentistry.

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