flip-flops

Noun

flip-flop (plural flip-flops)

1. (UK, US) A sandal consisting of a rubber sole fastened to the foot by a rubber thong fitting between the toes and around the sides of the foot.
   • the necessity for yet another place at which to buy a polo shirt or a pair of flip-flops may not be apparent to the town's residents30 August 2004, The New Yorker,, page 38

   Synonyms:

   flippy-flop, go-ahead, jandal, thong, plugger, slop, chancla, zori, beach sandal, slipper

2. (idiomatic) A change of places; an inversion or swap.
   • On the break for strong left, everything remains the same, except for the flip-flop of positions.1964, Scholastic Coach, volume 34, page 8
   1. (US, idiomatic) An instance of flip-flopping, of repeatedly changing one's stated opinion about a matter.
3. A bistable; an electronic switching circuit that has either two stable states (switching between them in response to a trigger) or a stable and an unstable state (switching from one to the other and back again in response to a trigger), and which is thereby capable of serving as one bit of memory.
   • Ten two-state flip-flops […] were formed into ten-stage ring counters representing each decimal digit in the ten-digit accumulators […]2012, George Dyson, Turing's Cathedral, Penguin, published 2013, page 72
4. The sound of a regular footfall.
5. A somersault.

See all 9 meanings of flip-flop