flappings

Noun

flapping (countable and uncountable, plural flappings)

1. An instance where one, or something, flaps.
   • The farmyard was dark and he tiptoed across it so that the turkeys wouldn't set up their gobbling and flapping.1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 24
2. A phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially American English and Canadian English, by which intervocalic /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar flap [ɾ] before an unstressed syllable, so that words such as "metal" and "medal" are pronounced similarly or identically.
3. The situation where a resource, a network destination, etc., is advertised as being available and then unavailable (or available by different routes) in rapid succession.
4. (uncountable) The unlicensed racing of horses or greyhounds.
   • Greyhound racing had its origins in whippet racing, which was derived in turn from hare coursing. By the early twentieth century, however, a form of dog racing held in 'flapping tracks' was a common pastime in the wastelands near working-class areas of industrial cities.2009, Mark Clapson, The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Twentieth Century, page 332

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