flapper
/ˈflæpɚ/
"flapper" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“flapper” is uncommon English (frequency #53,546 among 2,507 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,546
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A young girl usually between the ages of 15 and 18, especially one not "out" socially.
Corpus desk
Index EN-flapper · flapper · English
flapper · rank #53,546 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #53,546
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH fizzled
Nearest frequency peer: fizzled (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “flapper”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- FIFO
FIFO
46,460 corpus weight
- Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam
46,457 corpus weight
- fizzled
fizzled
46,456 corpus weight
- flapper
flapper
46,455 corpus weight
- flay
flay
46,454 corpus weight
- flyby
flyby
46,450 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “flapper” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | flapper |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈflæpɚ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #53,546 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “flapper” in English
Rare enough to double-check
flapper is uncommon English at frequency #53,546 among 2,507 “F” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈflæpɚ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for flapper in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: possible etymologies Possibly from Victorian sporting slang, meaning young wildfowl in August which are full-sized, tender and worthwhile quarry, but are naive and unable to fly properly due to the late development of flight feathers in ducks and geese. Alt… The correct English form is flapper, spelled F-L-A-P-P-E-R.
Definition
- 1A young girl usually between the ages of 15 and 18, especially one not "out" socially.
- 2A young woman, especially when unconventional or without decorum or displaying daring freedom or boldness; now particularly associated with the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how flapper appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Stud's eyes roved. Plenty of girls, most of them young flappers, Loretta's age. Only a couple of years ago they were kids.
I paid violent and unusual attention to a flapper all through the meal in order to make you jealous. She's probably in her cabin writing reams about me to a fellow-flapper at this very moment.
Etymology
possible etymologies Possibly from Victorian sporting slang, meaning young wildfowl in August which are full-sized, tender and worthwhile quarry, but are naive and unable to fly properly due to the late development of flight feathers in ducks and geese. Alternative derivations are also suggested. The word "flap" was slang in the 17th century for a prostitute: by the late 19th century in England "flapper" could mean either a very young prostitute: or a teenage girl too old to be a child and too young to be considered 'out' in society: "A 'flapper', we may explain, is a young lady who has not yet been promoted to long frocks and the wearing of her hair 'up'". The earliest documented use in the sense of "attractive young girl" is in the 1903 novel Sandford of Merton by Desmond Coke: "There's a stunning flapper.". The word also suggested a spirited girl of unconventional or mischievous disposition. An advertisement in The Times reads: "The father of a young lady, aged 15 – a typical “FLAPPER” – with all the self assurance of a woman of 30 would be grateful for the recommendation of a seminary (not a convent) where she might be placed for a year or two with the object of taming her." By 1912 the word had apparently both crossed the Atlantic and evolved to mean a slightly older girl: British stage impresario John Tiller defined it for readers of The New York Times as meaning "a girl who has just "come out". She is at an awkward age, neither a child nor a woman...". The word had clearly caught on, as a Mme. Nordica is quoted using it in The New York Times of January 1, 1913: "...a thin little flapper of a girl donning a skirt in which she can hardly take a step, extinguishing all but her little white teeth with a dumpy bucket of a hat..." By 1920 in England it clearly meant any young woman of a pleasure-seeking disposition: a Dr R. Murray-Leslie criticized "the social butterfly type...the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations."
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "flapper", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).