flop

present singular third person flops · participle present flopping · participle past flopped · past flopped

1. intransitiveTo fall heavily due to lack of energy.

   He flopped down in front of the television, exhausted from work.

   1 more example

   There was [in the clock in Lyons Cathedral] a centre puppet of the Virgin Mary; and close to her, a small pigeon-hole, out of which another and a very ill-looking puppet made one of the most sudden plunges I ever saw accomplished: instantly flopping back again at sight of her, and banging his little door violently, after him.

   1846, Charles Dickens, “Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 19

2. transitiveTo cause to drop heavily.

   The tired mule flopped its ears forward and trudged on.

3. informalintransitiveTo fail completely; not to be successful at all (of a movie, play, book, song etc.).

   The latest album flopped and so the studio canceled her contract.

4. intransitivehobbiesTo pretend to be fouled in sports, such as basketball, hockey (the same as to dive in soccer)

   It starts with Chris Paul, because Blake didn't really used to flop like that, you know, last year.

   1 more example

   While Stern chastised Vogel for on Thursday calling the Heat "the biggest flopping team in the NBA," he did intimate that he sees merit in the sentiment.

5. intransitiveTo strike about with something broad and flat, as a fish with its tail, or a bird with its wings; to rise and fall; to flap.

   The brim of a hat flops.

6. transitivecard gamesTo have (a hand) using the community cards dealt on the flop.

   Both players flopped sets! Cards dealt on the flop: Q95. Player A's hole cards: 55 (making three of a kind: 555). Player B's hole cards: QQ (making three of a kind: QQQ).

7. intransitiveslangTo stay, sleep or live in a place.

   […] not just the old material goal of "three hots and a place to flop," […]

   1969, Howard E. Freeman, Norman R. Kurtz, America's Troubles: A Casebook on Social Conflict, Prentice-Hall, page 414

   1 more example

   They have opened up crypts and basements as immense pads where vagrant and impoverished hippies can flop for the night.

   1973, Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal, Pantheon Books, page 135

8. transitiveTo flip; to reverse (an image).

   […] in order to flop the image left-to-right, or all printing will appear reversed.

   1986, Functional Photography, volumes 21-23, page 58

   1 more example

   The possibilities of this type of shot are almost limitless. By quartering the screen and duplicating and flopping the picture, a kaleidoscopic effect is achieved.

   1968, Advertising Techniques, volumes 4-5, page 28

9. slangtransitiveTo deny someone parole.

   I've been incarcerated going on 9½ years. I have never been back on the streets or given a chance to prove myself to society. Every time I would meet the parole board they would flop me telling me I would be a threat to society.

   1986 April 12, anonymous author, “One Day I'll Write a Book on This”, in Gay Community News, page 4

plural flops

1. A heavy, passive fall; a plopping down.
2. A complete failure, especially in the entertainment industry.

   Well I know your little baby sister / She thinks that I'm a flop / But I guess that you know that it's true / I spent more time at the bottom than the top

   1979, Lou Reed, “I Want to Boogie With You”, in The Bells

   Synonyms: dud, fiasco, turkey, box office bomb

3. card gamesThe first three cards turned face-up by the dealer in a community card poker game.

   The flop didn't help you but probably did help the other hands.

   1996, John Patrick, John Patrick's Casino Poker: Professional Gambler's Guide to Winning

   2 more examples

   Here are six tips to help you play successfully on the flop (the first three communal cards).

   2003, Lou Krieger, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games

   The strength of your hand now has nothing to do with how strong it may have been before the flop.

   2005, Henry Stephenson, Real Poker Night: Taking Your Home Game to a New Level

4. Dung, as in cow-flop.

   2018 Brent Butt as Brent Herbert Leroy, "Sasquatch Your Language", Corner Gas Animated Wherever legitimate tracks are found there's always some fresh scat, y'know, poo, flop, dumplings.

   3 more examples

   "Maybe as you think," he said, "because as I've the misfortune of an accidental slip on a cow-flop therefore I has the inability of an unborn babe, ...

   1960, Winston Graham, Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787, Bodley Head, page 302

   ... cowpat or cow-flop, Cow dung, often used dry as heating fuel.

   2000, Dean King, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales, Henry Holt & Co., page 162

   "Cow flop in a neat package is still cow flop. What did Cable stand to gain from the flood?"

   2003, John W. Billheimer, Drybone Hollow, St. Martin's Press, page 215

5. slangA flophouse.

   He was kind of worn but the tooth said he'd never lost a fight or slept in a flop.

   2013, Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, Dangerous Games

1. Indicating the sound of something flopping.

   "One step. Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him!"

   1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, page xx. 154

1. not comparableRight, squarely, flat-out.

   She fell flop on the floor.

2. not comparableWith a flopping sound.

plural flops

1. abbreviationcomputingAbbreviation of floating-point operation.

   The Correlator can perform 750 billion ‘flops’, or simple calculations, per second.

   1993 August 17, New York Times, C8

2. by confusioncomputingOne floating-point operation per second, a unit of measure of processor speed.

   The gigaflop supercomputers of today are almost useless. What is needed is a teraflop machine. That’s a machine that can run at a trillion flops, a trillion floating-point operations per second, or roughly a thousand times as fast as Cray Y-MP8.

   1992 March 2, Richard Preston, “The Mountains of Pi”, in The New Yorker

plural FLOPs

1. computingSynonym of flop.

   Synonyms: flop