take a flutter

take a flutter (third-person singular simple present takes a flutter, present participle taking a flutter, simple past took a flutter, past participle taken a flutter)

1. To flutter for a short period of time.
   • 2016 -, Laurie Pegrum, Looking at Clouds, page 218:

     Jenny's pulse took a flutter at the word 'newspaper' now knowing that she was guilty.

   • 2017, Richard Mason -, The Fever Tree:

     “Now, that's a good question, and I'm glad to answer it,” Potter said. “The fact is that it occurred to me there might be a pigeon somewhere round here that was thinking of taking a flutter.

2. (UK, Canada) To place a small bet.
   • 2010, Steven Manners, Valley of Fire:

     Hughes takes a flutter on the nearest six, nickel bets on thirty-one to thirty-six.

   • 2012, David Stevenson, FT Guide to Exchange Traded Funds and Index Funds:

     Although they aspired, like all natural-born gamblers, to taking a flutter and beating that system (they all loved the idea of tips, of course), they were sufficiently cynical to know it's a mug's game and that it was largely bound to fail.

   • 2018, Kasey Michaels, The Promise:

     I was ridin' the horses then, you understand, and maybe known to take a flutter or two on the bangtails while I was about it.

3. (UK, Canada) To support a risky option.
   • 1919, P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves:

     You'd hardly believe how difficult it was to interest the public and make them take a flutter on the old boy.

   • 2012, Peter F. Trent, Merger Delusion:

     In the next general election in 2007 the Liberals hung on to only a couple of these ridings: most of their voters took a flutter with the ADQ.

   • 2019 August 28, David Gordon Duke, “Classical music: Vancouver Recital Society celebrates 40 years going strong”, in Vancouver Sun:

     In time Getz took up the slack left by the dearth of commercial presenters and took a flutter on big-name artists in mid-career, often in the Orpheum.