flab·by

(flăb′ē)

adj. flab·bi·er, flab·bi·est

a. Soft and hanging loosely or in folds: a flabby belly.

b. Having a body characterized by fleshiness or softness, as from being somewhat overweight: He is very flabby around the waist.

2. Lacking force, control, or effectiveness: "The stories will be filled with more action than plot.... There will be more clichéd lines, more flabby reaction shots, more slack and vacuous scenes" (Theodore Roszak).

[Alteration of flappy, tending to flap, from flap.]

flab′bi·ly adv.

flab′bi·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adv.

flabbily - in a flabby manner; "the old man's muscles were sagging flabbily"

Translations

indolemment

flabbily

adv → schlaff; written → schwammig

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in classic literature

One, pretending to imitate him, goes outside and comes in again in a ludicrously nervous manner, explaining to him afterward that that is the way he--meaning the shy fellow--walks into a room; or, turning to him with "This is the way you shake hands," proceeds to go through a comic pantomime with the rest of the room, taking hold of every one's hand as if it were a hot plate and flabbily dropping it again.

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"Well, scholar of Antichrist, may you be strangled with the entrails of your mother!" exclaimed Phoebus, and he gave the drunken scholar a rough push; the latter slipped against the wall, and slid flabbily to the pavement of Philip Augustus.

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Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr.

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He giggled flabbily, and sat down in a steamer chair.

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