Definition
A disturbance, usually one caused within a group of people who are generally placid and unexcited.
Origins
Probably from flutter the dovecote, possibly from Coriolanus (written c. 1608–1609; published 1623) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Act V, scene vi (spelling modernized): “[L]ike an eagle in a dovecote, I / Fluttered your Volcians in Corioles.”
In Context
- "I further argued that the principal cause for the political deadlock that persisted for thirty years after the guns fell silent was Israeli intransigence rather than Arab intransigence. The appearance of the first wave of revisionist studies excited a great deal of interest and controversy in the media and more than a flutter in the academic dovecote."
See Also
- flutter the dovecot
- flutter the dovecote
- flutter the dovecotes
- put the cat among the pigeons
- kerfuffle