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Flat as a flitter
leahbrooks
6 Posts
(Offline)
1
2015/09/15 - 1:56pm

My friend used this expression, "flat as a flitter", last night and said it came from her Mom, who hails from Kansas. Anyone know what a flitter could be?

deaconB
744 Posts
(Offline)
2
2015/09/15 - 7:13pm

Could that be a mutation of flinders?

When you pound the hell out of something brittle, it fllies in flinders.   Dictionary.com defines flinders it as fragments or splinters.

EmmettRedd
859 Posts
(Offline)
3
2015/09/16 - 5:21am

The OxED has for its third noun entry:

Etymology: < German flitter.

‘A minute square of thin metal, used in decoration; collectively, a quantity of such squares’ ( Cent. Dict.).
18.. Beck's Jrnl. Dec. Art 2 40 (Cent. Dict. Suppl.) Strong and brilliant colors are freely used, together with gilt flitter, in the representation of flowering plants, fountains, and other devices [for window-shades].

A Ngram search found many books containing flitter but on the first page of books from 1825 to 1908 was this one.
Since there was a significant German influence in the central US, this origin is likely. BTW, it is a phrase also heard in southwest Missouri.

deaconB
744 Posts
(Offline)
4
2015/09/16 - 11:35am

EmmettRedd said

Since there was a significant German influence in the central US, this origin is likely.

I recently read that there are more Americans of German ethnicity than English.

Not that it really matters.  Until 1917,the house of Windsor caslled itself the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and made no effort to hide their German heritage.

EmmettRedd
859 Posts
(Offline)
5
2015/09/17 - 7:16pm

I decided to try flat as a flitter at this Google Ngram. This is the earliest I found in 1899.

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