different between floppy vs velvet

English

Etymology

From flop +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fl?.pi/

• Rhymes: -?pi

Adjective

floppy (comparative floppier, superlative floppiest)

1. Limp, not hard, firm, or rigid; flexible.
   • 2005, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 3,

     The smile, the white collar worn with a dark shirt, the floppy breast-pocket handkerchief would surely be famous when the chaps in the rows behind were mere forgotten grins and frowns.

Derived terms

• floppy disk, floppy disc

Translations

Noun

floppy (plural floppies)

1. (computing, dated) A floppy disk.
2. (military slang, Rhodesia, South Africa) An insurgent in the Rhodesian Bush War, called as such for the way they "flop" when shot.
   • 1997, Dick Gledhill, One Commando: Rhodesia's Last Years & the Guerilla War it Never Lost, p. 55:

     "Ja, our job is not to think or make decisions. We just here to slay floppies," remarked Koos.

   Synonyms: terr, gook

3. (informal) A comic book.
   • 2013, Nickie D. Phillips, Staci Strobl, Comic Book Crime: Truth, Justice, and the American Way (page 226)

     We suggest that the impact of comic books is greater than it may first appear. Though individual sales of floppies may be low compared to, say, dollar grosses on motion pictures or may reach fewer viewers than a summer blockbuster […]

Synonyms

• diskette

Derived terms

• mini-floppy
• micro-floppy
• flippy-floppy

Translations

Anagrams

• pop fly

English

Etymology

From Middle English velvet, velwet, veluet, from Old Occitan veluet, from Late Latin villutittus, diminutive of vill?tus, from Latin villus (“shaggy hair, tuft of hair”). Cognate with French velours.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?v?lv?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?v?lv?t/

Noun

velvet (countable and uncountable, plural velvets)

1. A closely woven fabric (originally of silk, now also of cotton or man-made fibres) with a thick short pile on one side.
2. Very fine fur, including the skin and fur on a deer's antlers.
3. (rare) A female chinchilla; a sow.
4. (slang) The drug dextromethorphan.
5. (slang) Money acquired by gambling.

Derived terms

• black velvet
• Velvet Revolution
• velveteen
• velvety (adjective)

Translations

Verb

velvet (third-person singular simple present velvets, present participle velveting, simple past and past participle velveted)

1. To cover with velvet or with a covering of a similar texture.
   • 1834, Edward Price, Norway. Views of Wild Scenery: and Journal, London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., Part I, p. 16, [2]

     Penmachno mill is situate where a stream has furrowed a deep channel, and velveted the rocks with the richest mosses […] .

   • 1963, "Childe Harold in New York," Time, 6 September, 1963, [3]

     Last week the scaffolds were up in the hall once more. This time the back wall is to be velveted in absorbent fiber glass […]

2. (cooking) To coat raw meat in starch, then in oil, preparatory to frying.
   • 1982, Barbara Tropp, The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, Morrow, 1982, p. 137, [4]

     Blanching cut and specially marinated chicken in oil or water prior to stir-frying is a technique common to Chinese restaurant kitchens. The 20-second bath tenderizes the chicken remarkably, hence the process has been dubbed "velveting" in English. Velveted chicken is half-cooked, will not stick to the pan, and needs almost no oil when stir-fried.

3. To remove the velvet from a deer's antlers.
   • 2014, "Top genetic selection produces biggest antlers," NZFarmer.co.nz, 12 July, 2014, [5]

     Reacting to painkillers when velveted, Sovereign II was too sick to grow antlers last year, but has since recovered.

4. (figuratively, transitive) To soften; to mitigate.
5. (of a cat's claws) to retract.

Adjective

velvet (comparative more velvet, superlative most velvet)

1. Made of velvet.
2. Soft and delicate, like velvet; velvety.
3. (politics) peaceful, carried out without violence; especially as pertaining to the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia.
   • 1995, Amin Saikal, William Maley, Russia in Search of Its Future, page 214

     What at the time of the initial agreement of Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk to join together in a new 'Commonwealth of Independent States' had seemed like a reconstitution of the lands of ancient Rus, quickly turned out to be, in the words of the leading Russian-Ukrainian reformer Aleksandr Tsipko, merely a 'velvet disintegration'.

   • 2006, The Analyst: Central and Eastern European Review

     The disintegration always took place within internal borders, whether it was velvet, as in the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, or bloody, like Yugoslavia's still unfinished break-up.

   • 2011, David Gillies, Elections in Dangerous Places: Democracy and the Paradoxes of Peacebuilding, page 248:

     If the Sudanese can resolve the final steps in a velvet divorce and move in a more democratic direction, that will serve as a heartening "ideal model of change" […]

   • 2011, Javad Etaat quoted in Hooman Majd, The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge, page 39:

     “I was once invited to give a speech about the attempt to topple Iran's political system through a ‘velvet revolution,’ ” says Etaat in the debate, “but we all know that ‘velvet revolutions’ always occur in dictatorships.”

   • 2014, Dana H. Allin, NATO's Balkan Interventions, page 97

     There is such a thing as a velvet divorce: if Canada or Belgium were to split apart, the consequences would be unfortunate but manageable.

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “velvet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Middle English

Alternative forms

• velwet, veluet, welwet, velvette, felwet

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Occitan veluet, from Late Latin villutittus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v?l?v?t/, /v?l?w?t/

Noun

velvet (plural veluettes)

1. velvet (fine tufted fabric)
2. Clothes made of velvet.

Descendants

• English: velvet
• Scots: velvet

References

• “velvet, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-5.