aflutter

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Fluttering.

   • I can hear / Your heart a-flutter over the snow-hills;
   • 1888, W. B. Yeats, “King Gall” in uncredited editor, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, Dublin: M.H. Gill, p. 43, They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me—the beech leaves old
   • The winds bared her limbs, the opposing breezes set her garments aflutter as she ran, and a light air flung her locks streaming behind her.
2. 2

   Filled or covered (with something that flutters).

   • The day being warm and sultry, the balcony was all aflutter with the feather fans of the ladies of the family and their attendants,
   • Beyond this lie the gardens of Hafiz and Saadi, each containing the poet’s tomb, and many others equally delicious for their cypresses, pines, and orange trees a-flutter with white pigeons and orchestras of sparrows.
   • When Sammy returned from Virginia, after an interminable gray trip back up U.S. 1, he found their house in Midwood aflutter with bunting.
3. 3

   In a state of tremulous excitement, anticipation or confusion.

   • […] she rose, all a-flutter within, it is true, but with a face as nearly sedate as the inborn witchery of her eyes would allow.
   • Once inside the house, everything was aflutter until I was safe and sound.

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