How to use flounder in a sentence
23 example sentences · noun, verb
Flounder means a European species of flatfish having dull brown colouring with reddish-brown blotches; fluke, European flounder (Platichthys flesus). Example: “He gave a good speech, but floundered when audience members asked questions he could not answer well.”
Examples of flounder by meaning
nounAny of various flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae or Bothidae.
- These wrecks hold tautog, porgies, sea bass, flounder.2014, Nick Honachefsky, The Jersey Surf Diaries
verbTo act clumsily or confused; to struggle or be flustered.
- He gave a good speech, but floundered when audience members asked questions he could not answer well.
- These epics nearly always had runaway trains, nincompoops floundering with the controls and a collapsed bridge just ahead!1958 February, David Gunston, “Railways on the Screen”, in Railway Magazine, page 88
- He is assessing directions, but he is not lost, not floundering.1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, paperback edition, Virago Press, page 136
verbTo make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance.
- Robert yanked Connie's leg vigorously, causing her to flounder and eventually fall.
More sentences with flounder
- The speaker went in cold and floundered for a topic.From the entry cold
- Barramundi, bream, flounder, garfish, John Dory, snapper and Silver Dory are suitable for this recipe.2012, Shirley Cameron, Cooking the Australian Way, 8th edition, South Yarra, Vic.: Macmillan Education Australia, →ISBN, page 265. From the entry dory
- I flounder off toward the shouts and whipcracks, screaming for my life.1998, Barry Yourgrau, Haunted Traveller: An Imaginary Memoir. From the entry whipcrack
- It is like floundering in a sea of cotton; everything looks blurred and white.1979, Finn Ronne, Antarctica, My Destiny, Hastings House, →ISBN, page 136. From the entry whiteout
- The ensuing schizosexual behavior is marked by blurred awareness and floundering activity.1963, Hendrik Marinus Ruitenbeek, editor, The Problem of Homosexuality in Modern Society, Dutton, page 123. From the entry schizosexual
- I seed him,” and Uncle Billy floundered for a moment, caught in his own trap.1914, Edward Peple, The Littlest Rebel, page 21. From the entry yas'm
- Happily I flounder about, terrifying the minnows, and float on my back and spout cheekfuls of water at the sun.1968, Edward Abbey, “Down the River”, in Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, McGraw-Hill; republished New York: Touchstone…. From the entry cheekful
- They floundered into deep footholes at every step.1945, Sara Katherine Casey Maynard, Scott and His Men, page 50. From the entry foothole
- Cooper’s was also a fishmonger, with rows of porgies, snapper, and flounder on ice that slowly melted and dribbled pink water into white buckets.2023, Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto, Fleet, pages 244-245. From the entry porgy
- At first glance (or should I say taste?), a sushi of flounder will not be that different from a sushi of sea bream.2004, Chihiro Mazui, Kazuko Masui, “Introduction”, in Sushi Secrets, London: Hachette Illustrated, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry sushi
- It’s very Christian of you.” “People here do not think of me as a Christian, Mitti.” “I’d call it Christian charity,” I floundered.1981, Mary Leader, Salem’s Children, →ISBN, page 82. From the entry christian
- Canned cod liver is available any place, as are smoked flounder and German caviar, not to mention a wide selection of sardines.1970, LaVern Rippley, “German Food”, in Of German Ways, Minneapolis, Minn.: Dillon Press, Inc., published 1973, →ISBN, page 252. From the entry cod liver
- Suddenly single at thirty, I floundered through those awful encounters, affairettes, and all-out affairs I’d tried to spare myself by marrying early and supposedly for good.2004, Erika Ritter, The Great Big Book of Guys,, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, page 5. From the entry affairette
- Bothids are left-eyed flounders, that is, both eyes are found on the left side of the adults after metamorphosing from the more traditional one-eye-per-side mode as post-larvae.1994, G. H. Burgess, S. H. Smith, E. D. Lane, “11: Fishes of the Cayman Islands”, in M. A. Brunt, J. E. Davies, editors, The Cayman…. From the entry bothid
- Or is it just the top of our pinnacle, the point at which we reveal our sphexish streak and flounder about foolishly in the face of higher thought?1984, Daniel C[lement] Dennett, “Making Reason Practical”, in Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (A Bradford Book)…. From the entry sphexish
- His batwings were somehow more frightening for being the pathetic broken floundering things they were than if they had been strong, muscular beaters of the air.1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 94. From the entry beater
- These politenesses left Miss Marley floundering for initiative, holding Jasper and being solemnly inspected by Podson, who clearly depended on her the convention of an afternoon call.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 145. From the entry politeness
- More noises came from a dusty tree, where brown birds creaked and floundered about looking for insects; another bird, the invisible coppersmith, had started his ‘ponk ponk’.1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin, published 2005, page 104. From the entry coppersmith
Meaning of flounder
- noun A European species of flatfish having dull brown colouring with reddish-brown blotches; fluke, European flounder (Platichthys flesus).
- noun Any of various flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae or Bothidae.
- noun A bootmaker's tool for crimping boot fronts.
Questions about flounder in a sentence
- How do you use flounder in a sentence?
- Flounder is used as a noun and verb. For example: “He gave a good speech, but floundered when audience members asked questions he could not answer well.”
- What is a short sentence with flounder?
- “These wrecks hold tautog, porgies, sea bass, flounder.”
- What does flounder mean?
- Flounder means a European species of flatfish having dull brown colouring with reddish-brown blotches; fluke, European flounder (Platichthys flesus).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: flounder (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use flounder in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/flounder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
