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Sprawl vs Flop - What's the difference?

sprawl | flop |

As a verb sprawl

is to sit with the limbs spread out.

As a noun sprawl

is an ungainly sprawling posture.

sprawl

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To sit with the limbs spread out.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1888 , year_published=1994 , publisher=Wordsworth Editions , author= , title=The Man Who Would Be King, and Other Stories , chapter=Baa Baa, Black Sheep citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=4cHkHAU7r9kC&pg=PA159&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=OhVOTMSHDciWOPGJgZYD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBzhQ
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9781853262098 , page=159 , passage=There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl' on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for the future. ' Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1942 , year_published=2007 , publisher=Down East Enterprises , author=Louise Dickinson Rich , title=We Took to the Woods , chapter=“Do You Get Out Very Often?” citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=LsDXYtxwxygC&pg=PA314&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=OhVOTMSHDciWOPGJgZYD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCThQ
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780892727360 , page=314 , passage=But most of all I like to sit in the dark with all these hearty souls sprawled' around me on the floor and hear them talk. I am sorry to say that I can never believe that floor-'''sprawling is anything but a pose; I have tried it and it is ''not comfortable but it looks well in the flickering fire-light, and is in good magazine-story tradition.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1979 , year_published=1985 , publisher=Gallaudet University Press , author=Thomas S. Spradley, James P. Spradley , title=Deaf Like Me , section=Chapter Six citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jhq_4oEbcKcC&pg=PA64&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=SBlOTJbXEqSTOJzI_ZUD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCsQ6AEwATha
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780930323110 , page=64 , passage=There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game.}}
  • To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1771 , publisher=B. White , editor= , by=Carl Gustav Ekeberg , author=Johann Reinhold Foster , title=A Voyage to China and the East Indies, volume 2 , chapter=Birds and Beasts , volume_plain=A Short Account of the Chinese Husbandry citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=zUkQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA312&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=Mh5LTOatOtfcsAavq-RF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAzge
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , page=321 , passage=The hatched young ones are ?odl to tho?e who breed them up, and the?e try in the following manner whether they are hatched too ?oon or not: they take hold the little ducks by the bill, and their bodies hang down ; if they ?prawl and extend their feet and wings, they are hatched in due time ; but if they have had too much heat, they hang without any ?truggling.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1914 , year_published=2009 , publisher=BiblioBazaar , author= , title=Cross Trails: The Story of One Woman in the North Woods citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Ew0CQkAYQkUC&pg=PA116&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=vSdLTN7rJYuqsAbU7MhG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwADgK
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9781103051649 , page=116 , passage=A shrewd blow, it caught him off balance, and after one ineffectual stagger he sprawled backward and lay for a moment staring up in blank surprise}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1995 , publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group , author=James H. Hallas , title=Squandered Victory: the American First Army at St. Mihiel , chapter=Eyes on Metz citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=v8CgZ6eJFa8C&pg=PA187&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=-xFOTJiDFY6lsQao_fxO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBDgo
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780275950224 , page=187 , passage=German trucks stood along the road, the drivers dead in the seats or sprawled' on the ground nearby.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Clive Lindsay , title=Kilmarnock 1 - 2 St Johnstone , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Bell sprawled full length to turn a Sandaza drive wide of the far post, but Saints had done enough to inflict Killie's first home defeat of the season.}}

    Noun

    (-)
  • An ungainly sprawling posture.
  • A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=2006 , publisher=JHU Press , author=Anthony Flint , title=The Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America , section=Introduction: Developing America citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=SmVKMXG28Q0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=sprawl&ei=qhxLTISWK4aWzASZmMG-CQ&cd=10
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , isbn=9780801884191 , page=17 , passage=Getting people to think about the future is difficult. Just ask some of the people who end up being most concerned about sprawl —the millions who move into suburban subdivisions, only to have their dreams of the good life spoiled by maddening traffic and water bans, because millions more moved into the next subdivision over.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine
    • , year=1959 , author=William H. Whye Jr. , title=A Plan to Save Vanishing U.S. Countryside , date=August 17, 1959 , volume=47 , issue=7 , page=92 , magazine=Life , publisher=Time, Inc , issn=0024-3019 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=R0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=fB1LTJPFHM_gsAbDzMRG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , passage=Many of our past difficulties in dealing with sprawl' come from some very mistaken if widely held assumptions. One is that ' sprawl is due to too many people and not enough land. }}
  • * {{quote-magazine
    • , year=1948 , author=Terry B. Augur , title=The Dispersal of Cities—A Feasible Program , date=October 1948 , volume=4 , issue=10 , page=314 , magazine=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , publisher=Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science , issn=0096-3402 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=0QsAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA314&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=Mh5LTOatOtfcsAavq-RF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwADge
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , passage=He briefly compares the relative merits of providing for that growth by the usual method of urban sprawl and by directing it into suburban satellite communities with the integrity preserved and comes out strongly for the latter method. }}

    Derived terms

    * urban sprawl

    See also

    * Los Angelization

    flop

    English

    Etymology 1

    Recorded since 1602, probably a variant of (flap) with a duller, heavier sound

    Verb

    (flopp)
  • To fall heavily, because lacking energy.
    • He flopped down in front of the television as he was exhausted from work.
    (Charles Dickens)
  • To fail completely, not to be successful at all (about a movie, play, book, song etc.).
    • The latest album flopped and so the studio canceled her contract.
  • (sports) To pretend to be fouled in sports, such as basketball, hockey (the same as to dive in soccer)
    • It starts with Chris Paul, because Blake didn't really used to flop like that, you know, last year.
    While Stern chastised Vogel for on Thursday calling the Heat "the biggest flopping team in the NBA," he did intimate that he sees merit in the sentiment.
  • To strike about with something broad and flat, as a fish with its tail, or a bird with its wings; to rise and fall; to flap.
    • The brim of a hat flops .
    Derived terms
    * flophouse * flopover * flopper * floppy

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An incident of a certain type of fall; a plopping down.
  • A complete failure, especially in the entertainment industry.
  • (poker) The first three cards turned face-up by the dealer in a game.
  • * 1996: John Patrick, John Patrick's Casino Poker: Professional Gambler's Guide to Winning
    • The flop didn't help you but probably did help the other hands.
  • * 2003: Lou Krieger, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games
    • Here are six tips to help you play successfully on the flop (the first three communal cards).
  • * 2005: Henry Stephenson, Real Poker Night: Taking Your Home Game to a New Level
    • The strength of your hand now has nothing to do with how strong it may have been before the flop .
  • A place to stay, sleep or live. See flophouse
  • * 1973 , Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal , Pantheon Books, page 135,
    • They have opened up crypts and basements as immense pads where vagrant and impoverished hippies can flop for the night..
  • * 1969 , Howard E. Freeman, Norman R. Kurtz, America's Troubles: A Casebook on Social Conflict , Prentice-Hall, Page 414,
    • ... is not just the old material goal of "three hots and a place to flop ," it ....
  • * 2006 , Ray Douglas, America Is Headed for a Fall , AuthorHouse, Page 53,
    • Hugh and the boys playing in beautiful settings with beautiful young babes was a far cry from grungy hippies doing it in a filthy flop house, ...
  • A ponded package of dung, as in a cow-flop.
  • * 2000 , Dean King, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales , Henry Holt & Co., Page 162,
    • ... cowpat or cow-flop , Cow dung, often used dry as heating fuel.
  • * 1960 , Winston Graham, Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787 , Bodley Head, Page 302,
    • "Maybe as you think," he said, "because as I've the misfortune of an accidental slip on a cow-flop therefore I has the inability of an unborn babe, ...
  • * 2003 , John W. Billheimer, Drybone Hollow , St. Martin's Press, Page 215,
    • "Cow flop in a neat package is still cow flop. What did Cable stand to gain from the flood?"
    Synonyms
    * (complete failure) dud, fiasco, turkey * (specifically in entertainment) box office bomb

    Adverb

    (-)
  • Right, squarely, flat-out.
  • With a flopping sound.
    • See also
    * aflop

    Related terms

    * flip-flop

    Etymology 2

    Syllabic abbreviation of (floating point) + (operation).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) A unit of measure of processor speed, being one floating-point operation per second.
    • Derived terms
    * megaflop * gigaflop * teraflop ----