flutter in the dovecote

English
WOTD – 24 August 2022

Etymology

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.”[1][2]

Pronunciation

Noun

flutter in the dovecote

  1. (idiomatic) A disturbance, usually one caused within a group of people who are generally placid and unexcited.
    • 2001 November 15, Avi Shlaim, “Israel Confronts Its Past”, in St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford (Conflict, Justice, and Collective Memories: How Countries Deal with Difficult Pasts [lecture series])‎, archived from the original on 25 September 2006:
      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.

Translations

See also

References
  1. William Shakespeare (written c. 1608–1609) “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, page 30: “[L]ike an Eagle in a Doue-coat, I / Flatter’d[sic – meaning Flutter’d] your Volcians in Corioles.”
  2. Compare “to flutter the dovecotes” under “flutter, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2022; “flutter the dovecotes, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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