WIND TIME UP flounder FLOUN-der, verb: 1. to struggle clumsily or helplessly: He floundered helplessly on the first day of his new job. 2. to struggle with stumbling or plunging movements (usually followed by about, along, on, through, etc.): He saw the child floundering about in the water. ...we flounder, we lose breath, on the other hand—that is we fail, not of continuity, but of an agreeable unity, of the "roundness" in which beauty and lucidity largely reside—when we go in, as they say, for great lengths and breadths. -- Henry James, Theory of Fiction, 1908 Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures. -- Audre Lorde, "Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism," Sister Outsider, 1984 Though the origin of flounder is unknown, it is thought to have come from the Dutch flodderen meaning "to flop about." This verb entered English in the late sixteenth century.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:26:40 +0000
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