flop

1 of 4

verb

flopped; flopping

intransitive verb

1
: to swing or move loosely : flap
2
: to throw or move oneself in a heavy, clumsy, or relaxed manner
flopped into the chair
3
: to change or turn suddenly
4
: to go to bed
a place to flop at night
5
: to fail completely
the play flopped

transitive verb

: to move or drop heavily or noisily : cause to flop
flopped the bundles down
flopper noun

flop

2 of 4

adverb

: right, squarely
fell flop on my face

flop

3 of 4

noun (1)

1
: an act or sound of flopping
2
: a complete failure
the movie was a flop
3
slang : a place to sleep
especially : flophouse
4
: dung
cow flop
also : a piece of dung

flop

4 of 4

noun (2)

plural flops
: a unit of measure for calculating the speed of a computer equal to one floating-point operation per second
Supplied by IBM, with a billion flops (floating point operations per second) and a capacity to expand to 60 billion flops with the addition of other processors and memory, it will be among the 10 most sophisticated computers in the world.Eleanor Wilson
usually used in combination
gigaflop
A GPU [=graphics processing unit] can deliver hundreds of billions of operations per second—some GPUs more than a teraflop, or a trillion operations per second—while requiring only slightly more electrical power and cooling than a CPU.Andrea Di Blas et al.

Examples of flop in a Sentence

Verb He flopped down onto the bed. She flopped into the chair with a sigh. All of their attempts have flopped miserably. The curtains were flopping around in the breeze. Noun (1) The movie was a total flop. It fell to the ground with a flop.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Verb
The film earned mostly negative reviews and flopped at the box office with $58 million domestically and $206 million worldwide, a far cry from the 2019 original’s $1 billion gross. Zack Sharf, Variety, 6 Dec. 2024 This past weekend, McCord led the Orangemen over the Miami Hurricanes in a major upset while Ohio State....once again flopped against Michigan. Don Yaeger, Forbes, 4 Dec. 2024
Noun
The Fire Phone flop is a prime example of this philosophy in action. Joe Altieri, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2024 The Quick and the Dead, though a flop upon release with mixed critical reviews and a low domestic gross, has since become a cult classic of sorts. Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 2 Dec. 2024 See all Example Sentences for flop 

Word History

Etymology

Verb

alteration of flap entry 2

Noun (2)

floating-point operation

First Known Use

Verb

1602, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense 1

Adverb

1728, in the meaning defined above

Noun (1)

1823, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun (2)

1976, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of flop was in 1602

Dictionary Entries Near flop

Cite this Entry

“Flop.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flop. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.

Kids Definition

flop

1 of 2 verb
flopped; flopping
1
: to swing or bounce loosely : flap about
a hat brim flopping
2
a
: to throw oneself down in a heavy, clumsy, or relaxed manner
flopped into the chair
b
: to throw or drop suddenly and heavily or noisily
flopped the bundles down with a thud
3
: to fail completely
the play flopped

flop

2 of 2 noun
1
: an act or sound of flopping
2
: a complete failure : dud

More from Merriam-Webster on flop

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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