Flapper

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈflæpɚ/

Definitions

1. A young woman of the 1920s who rejected traditional social conventions and engaged in rebellious behavior such as smoking, drinking, and dancing to jazz music
2. A young woman in the 1920s known for a carefree and unconventional lifestyle ; a part of a machine or instrument that moves back and forth or flaps to control flow or function
3. A woman from the Roaring Twenties noted for her bold fashion and lively social habits ; a mechanical flap or valve that opens and closes to regulate movement or flow

Etymology: The most striking thing about "flapper" is that its most famous sense arrived by way of a sporting term, a prostitute's slang and a hairstyle before it ever described a 1920s rebel. In Victorian England, a flapper was a young fledgling bird that tried to fly by flapping its wings, perhaps especially a half-grown wildfowl in August, prized as game but still clumsy in the air. The bird sense may be the source, though other derivations were also proposed, including a link to 17th-century slang "flap" for a prostitute, which in late 19th-century England could mean a very young prostitute or a teenage girl too old to be a child and too young to be "out" in society. By the early 20th century the term was often read as a hairstyle reference, a girl not yet in long frocks with her hair up. The first recorded use in the sense of an attractive young woman appears in Desmond Coke's 1903 novel "Sandford of Merton," and an English newspaper advertisement of the period described a 15-year-old "typical 'FLAPPER'" with the self-assurance of a woman of 30. By 1912 the word had crossed the Atlantic and shifted toward an older girl, "a girl who has just 'come out'," in the words of stage impresario John Tiller in The New York Times. The rebellious, bobbed-hair flapper of the 1920s grew from this sense of a spirited, unconventional young woman.

Synonyms: flapper girl, young woman, liberated woman, 1920s woman, modern woman