flip the bird

present singular third person flips the bird · participle present flipping the bird · participle past flipped the bird · past flipped the bird

1. ambitransitivecolloquialidiomaticTo make a rude or obscene gesture (at somebody); particularly, to extend the middle finger.

   I accidentally bumped into him, and he flipped me the bird.

   3 more examples

   He held his right hand up in front of his face and flipped the bird.

   2005, Vince Flynn, Consent to Kill, page 135

   The vaunted Attitude era was built, in many ways, on a level of crudity never before seen in wrestling. You had guys flipping the bird, women nearly naked in the ring and guys telling each other to “suck it.”

   2007, R. D. Reynolds, The Wrestlecrap Book of Lists!, page 350

   2008, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Everybody Sucks, American Society of Magazine Editors (compilers), The Best American Magazine Writing 2008, page 9, This summer, she took some time off in Maine, and before she went posted a picture of herself on Gawker in a bathing suit flipping the bird — "At least I didn't put up the ones of myself in a silver-lame bikini. That would have been a little much," she said, laughing.

   Synonyms: flick off, flip off, give the finger, give the bird

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see flip, bird.