Use flop for loose heavy movement, from a person dropping onto a sofa to hair, ears, or fabric hanging without stiffness.
Use flop for loose heavy movement, from a person dropping onto a sofa to hair, ears, or fabric hanging without stiffness.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| He flop onto the bed after work. | He flops onto the bed after work. |
| She floped down in the chair. | She flopped down in the chair. |
| The car flopped over on the icy road. | The car flipped over on the icy road. |
| His hair flopped the table. | His hair flopped over his forehead. |
Use flop for a film, product, campaign, show, or plan that fails noticeably rather than merely performs a little below expectations.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The movie flops at the box office last year. | The movie flopped at the box office last year. |
| Our campaign flops if we ignore pricing. | Our campaign will flop if we ignore pricing. |
| The team flopped the match by two points. | The team lost the match by two points. |
| She flopped the interview. | She failed the interview. |
Use flop as a noun for a clear failure, especially in entertainment, business, or public performance.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The play was flopped after one night. | The play was a flop after one night. |
| The album was a small flop but sold well. | The album was a disappointment but sold well. |
| That product is flop. | That product is a flop. |
| The speech became flop. | The speech became a flop. |
Use flop in sports when the point is deception or exaggeration, not simply falling after real contact.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| He flopped because the defender knocked him down hard. | He fell because the defender knocked him down hard. |
| The player flopped the opponent. | The player fouled the opponent. |
| She flop in the penalty area. | She flopped in the penalty area. |
| The referee gave him a flop. | The referee warned him for flopping. |
Use flop for that exact three-card stage, not for the later turn or river cards.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The flop is the fourth community card. | The turn is the fourth community card. |
| Five cards appeared on the flop. | Three cards appeared on the flop. |
| He bet before the pre-flop and after the flop. | He bet before the flop and after the flop. |
| The river came before the flop. | The flop came before the turn and river. |
Use flop in computing for a counted operation, and use FLOPS for operations per second as a performance rate.
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The processor performs one flop per second, so it is one FLOP. | The processor performs one flop per second, so it is one FLOPS. |
| The algorithm flopped because it used many flops. | The algorithm used many flops. |
| A flop is any computer instruction. | A flop is a floating-point arithmetic operation. |
| GFLOPS counts memory size. | GFLOPS counts billions of floating-point operations per second. |
Use context to separate the physical verb, the informal failure senses, the sports deception use, the poker term, and the technical computing count.
He flop drops the third-person ending, and the poker, sports, and computing senses are often confused with unrelated everyday failure uses.
Probably a heavier-sounding variant of flap, first recorded around 1600 for flapping movement, with the heavy-fall sense from the 1800s and the failure sense later in the 1800s and early 1900s.
What does flop mean as a verb?
Flop can mean to drop or hang heavily, to fail badly, or in sports to fake contact or injury.
What is a flop in entertainment?
A flop is a film, show, product, or event that fails badly or is poorly received.
What is the flop in poker?
The flop is the first three community cards dealt face up after the opening betting round.
What does flop mean in computing?
A flop is one floating-point arithmetic operation. FLOPS measures how many such operations happen per second.
What does flop mean in sports?
In sports, to flop is to exaggerate or fake contact so a referee calls a foul.
What is the past tense of flop?
The past tense is flopped, and the present participle is flopping.
Where does flop come from?
Flop is probably a heavier-sounding variant of flap, first tied to loose flapping movement.