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aflutter. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From a- + flutter.
Pronunciation
Adjective
aflutter (comparative more aflutter, superlative most aflutter)
- Fluttering.
- 1888, W. B. Yeats, “King Gall” in uncredited editor, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, Dublin: M.H. Gill, p. 43,
- They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me—the beech leaves old
1949, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 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, 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, 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, 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.
- In a state of tremulous excitement, anticipation or confusion.
1880, George Washington Cable, chapter 20, in The Grandissimes, 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,
- 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
Like other adjectives composed of a verb prefixed with a-, this adjective never precedes but always follows the word it modifies.
Translations
in a state of excited anticipation