Word: fluttering
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...running war of words that stretched as far back as his threats in the Indo-China crisis (1954) and Quemoy (1955). which were met firmly by the U.S. and did not lead to war. But in the midst of the cultural thaw, the parted-curtain mood, the flutter of peace doves, these threats had to be kept in mind as a continuing clue to Soviet policy...
...Peggy ("The Gorgeous Hussy") O'Neill (1796-1879), beautiful daughter of an innkeeper, who precipitated a historic scandal in Andrew Jackson's Administration. A widow, vivacious Peggy was for years the reputed mistress of Tennessee's Democratic Senator John Henry Eaton. Because there was a frightful flutter of gossip hovering over the pair, President-elect Jackson urged Eaton to "go marry her at once and shut their mouths." After Jackson appointed Eaton his Secretary of War, the gossip only worsened, and capital society, led by the wife of Vice President John Calhoun, barred Peggy from Washington...
Like the other books of Durrell's Alexandrian cycle, Mountolive has vivid imagery (the impact of the desert night is like "the flutter of eyelashes against the mind") and penetrant thought (no such thing as art exists for artists and the public; "it only exists for critics and those who live in the forebrain"). The book also has scenes of ghastly hilarity, as when Mountolive stumbles inadvertently into a brothel of child prostitutes and nearly loses his reason as well as his wallet...
...hostess must be ready, too, for any conversational emergency. Example: if Mr. Smathers down the table should remark: "Beethoven's Quartet, Opus 18, Number 6, is truly magnificent," the Prepared Hostess will instantly reply (preferably with an imperceptible flutter of the eyelashes): "Yes. but Bartok scores the gaps. That's the difference." This will immediately show the guests that she is the sort of person who knows about hollyhocks, and almost guarantee that the guests will hurry home to hunt up their copy of this week's TIME, flip quickly to NATIONAL AFFAIRS, and read Fried Shoes...
...deuterium), since the star-hot temperatures generated by fusion would melt any known substance. Physicists have tried magnetic bottles, in which the particles are forced together by powerful magnetic fields and held there without touching the walls of the apparatus. But present magnetic bottles are unstable. They bulge and flutter, permitting their contents to escape. More current would produce stronger magnetism. But if coils are fed too much current, they get too hot and melt...