Etymology 1

Verb

1. To fall heavily, because lacking energy.

   He flopped down in front of the television as he was exhausted from work.

2. To fail completely, not to be successful at all (about a movie, play, book, song etc.).

   The latest album flopped and so the studio canceled her contract.

Noun

1. An incident of a certain type of fall; a plopping down.
2. A complete failure, especially in the entertainment industry.
3. The first three cards turned face-up by the dealer in a community card poker game.
   • 1996: John Patrick, John Patrick's Casino Poker: Professional Gambler's Guide to Winning

     The flop didn't help you but probably did help the other hands.

   • 2003: Lou Krieger, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games

     Here are six tips to help you play successfully on the flop (the first three communal cards).

   • 2005: Henry Stephenson, Real Poker Night: Taking Your Home Game to a New Level

     The strength of your hand now has nothing to do with how strong it may have been before the flop.

4. A place to stay, sleep or live. See flophouse
   • 1973, Alan Watts, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal, Pantheon Books, page 135,

     They have opened up crypts and basements as immense pads where vagrant and impoverished hippies can flop for the night..

   • 1969, Howard E. Freeman, Norman R. Kurtz, America's Troubles: A Casebook on Social Conflict, Prentice-Hall, Page 414,

     ... is not just the old material goal of "three hots and a place to flop," it ....

   • 2006, Ray Douglas, America Is Headed for a Fall, AuthorHouse, Page 53,

     Hugh and the boys playing in beautiful settings with beautiful young babes was a far cry from grungy hippies doing it in a filthy flop house, ...

5. A ponded package of dung, as in a cow-flop.
   • 2000, Dean King, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales, Henry Holt & Co., Page 162,

     ... cowpat or cow-flop, Cow dung, often used dry as heating fuel.

   • 1960, Winston Graham, Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787, Bodley Head, Page 302,

     "Maybe as you think," he said, "because as I've the misfortune of an accidental slip on a cow-flop therefore I has the inability of an unborn babe, ...

   • 2003, John W. Billheimer, Drybone Hollow, St. Martin's Press, Page 215,

     "Cow flop in a neat package is still cow flop. What did Cable stand to gain from the flood?"

Synonyms

• (complete failure) dud, fiasco, turkey
• (specifically in entertainment) box office bomb

Noun

1. A unit of measure of processor speed, being one floating-point operation per second.