Meanings
The words snap-dragon and flap-dragon can refer to the game, the raisins used in the game, or the bowl with brandy and raisins. Other senses of flap-dragon are that of something worthless or trivial, as in "A Flap-dragon for your service, Sir!" from William Congreve's The Way of the World, and "a contemptuous term for a Dutchman or German". In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare used it as a verb, to describe a moment when a ship at sea is instantly swallowed up by a storm.
Read more about this topic: Snap-dragon (game)
Famous quotes containing the word meanings:
“Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The first green night of their dreaming, asleep beneath the Tree,/God said, “Let meanings move,” and there was poetry.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“An amoeba is a formless thing which takes many shapes. It moves by thrusting out an arm, and flowing into the arm. It multiplies by pulling itself in two, without permanently diminishing the original. So with words. A meaning may develop on the periphery of the body of meanings associated with a word, and shortly this tentacle-meaning has grown to such proportions that it dwarfs all other meanings.”
—Charlton Laird (b. 1901)