Verb (thieves’).—1. To rob; to swindle. For synonyms, see Prig and Stick.
2. (common).—To pay; ‘to fork out.’ Cf., Flap the Dimmock.
3. (venery).—To possess a woman. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.
To Flap a Jay, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To swindle a greenhorn; to sell a pup (q.v.).
1885. Daily Telegraph, Aug. 18th, p. 3., col. 1. He and three others of the ‘division’ had ‘cut up’ £70 between them, obtained by flapping a jay, which, rendered into intelligible English, means plundering a simple-minded person.
To Flap the Dimmock, verb. phr. (common).—To pay. [From Flap, a verb of motion + Dimmock = money]. Cf., Flap.
Flapdoodle, subs. (colloquial).—1. Transparent nonsense; “kid.” [[6]]
Also Flamdoodle and Flam-sauce, or Flap-sauce. For synonyms, see Gammon.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xxviii. ‘It’s my opinion, Peter, that the gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime.’ ‘What’s that, O’Brien,’ replied I. ‘Why, Peter, it’s the stuff they feed fools on.’
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford. I shall talk to our regimental doctors about it, and get put through a course of fools’ diet—flapdoodle they call it, what fools are fed on.