flap around

flap around

To wave about in the air, possibly due to being unencumbered or unrestrained. You better secure that sheet—otherwise, it'll be flapping around in the wind. A: "What's that noise?" B: "Oh, just the flags flapping around."
See also: around, flap
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

flap around

[for a sheet of something] to blow, flop, or slap around, perhaps in the wind. The sails flapped around, making a lot of noise. The awning flapped around during the night.
See also: around, flap
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • free bird
  • in stays
  • (as) comfortable as an old shoe
  • comfortable
  • comfortable as an old shoe
  • comfortable as an old shoe, as
  • an old shoe
  • hell around
  • with reckless abandon
  • with wild abandon
References in periodicals archive
A strong breeze blowing made his tie flap around annoying him.
Rain protection was not umbrella's original use
Now, pants, bras, socks and an array of other clothes flap around in the wind outside homes and shops in the town.
Panty-social behaviour? Protest over washing line letter
As the kids stress out, and the pushy parents flap around spewing motivational instructions, he cracks jokes and puts the kids at ease.
Who will win battle to be Britain's brightest child? PICK OF THE DAY CHILD GENIUS Channel 4, 8pm
"I think it will be quite a sombre event but it is a fitting tribute to a great prime minister, respected around the world" Prime Minister David Cameron describes Baroness Thatcher's ceremonial funeral on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme "She used to flap around like a mother hen.
THEY SAID WHAT?
SICK and deformed chickens with raw patches of skin flap around the corpse of a bird too weak to survive.
Crammed together in huge windowless sheds, covered in scabs and too weak to stand.. the unacceptable face of chicken farming in UK; Sunday Mirror HORROR OF FACTORY FARM
The book is made up of people with no solid ground to stand on, and so they flap around in midair, bracing themselves for the fall.
Boarded Windows
I hope they don't ask me to ride him like that again because I might be in trouble having to kick my stirrups out at the top of the hill and then flap around!
Legend Zimbabwe kept me going in hairy spot
"People flap around, they're in a mess and suddenly the guests are dinging on the door.
Treat yourself at home
They are a wild animal and they can't understand when they are caged, they can't sit on a perch so they flap around and break their wings and feathers."
Pigeon fancier trapped finches
Unfortunately this has left me with large rolls of redundant skin that flap around on my arms and abdomen.
Dear Doc with Dr Nick Simons; Family Life Health and fitness
TWELVE varieties of ray flap around the UK's shores and into the British Record Fish Committee's lists.
Fishing: DALE'S BLONDE BOMB SHELL! In association with Shakespeare
When an arrow fishtails or porpoises, the fletching should not flap around, but that is exactly what soft vanes do.
Stiff fletching
Everyone knows there is no real answer to this ( they sort of flap around, a bit like children in fact, and perhaps gain a few inches, but does that count as flying?
Home truths
"They scare each other into the pond and flap around, all helter-skelter.
Rare birds part of preservation breeding program
Its fins flap around but you can never be sure it knows what direction it is really going in.
RECORD VIEW; Man who put the Trot in TROUT