belly flop
noun
1
: a dive (as into water or in coasting prone on a sled) in which the front of the body strikes flat against another surface
called also belly flopper
2
: a complete and often painful or embarrassing failure : flop
… instead of doing a belly flop at the box office, Vampire soared …—
Jeff Gordinier
Jeff Gordinier
belly flop
intransitive verb
Examples of belly flop in a Sentence
She did a belly flop into the pool.
Recent Examples on the Web
He belly flopped onto the ice in ecstasy and relief before he was mobbed by his teammates, and then the game stopped to celebrate the greatest goal scorer who ever lived.
—Chris Jones, The Atlantic, 6 Apr. 2025
Since then, each Celtics road trip of four games or longer has given way to a similar belly flop at home.
—Jay King, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2025
The researchers found that instead of hopping with just their feet breaking the surface, as older studies had described anecdotally, the frogs were actually doing a series of belly flops—sinking for a fraction of a second and then kicking themselves upward with each jump.
—Rohini Subrahmanyam, Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2025
Buster the yellow Lab is a thicc fella who can stop, but will not stop, gleefully belly flopping into his swimming pool despite the increasingly helpless and desperately profane protestations of his mother.
—Julie Klausner, Vulture, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for belly flop
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Chris Jones, The Atlantic, 6 Apr. 2025
Since then, each Celtics road trip of four games or longer has given way to a similar belly flop at home.
—Jay King, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2025
The researchers found that instead of hopping with just their feet breaking the surface, as older studies had described anecdotally, the frogs were actually doing a series of belly flops—sinking for a fraction of a second and then kicking themselves upward with each jump.
—Rohini Subrahmanyam, Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2025
Buster the yellow Lab is a thicc fella who can stop, but will not stop, gleefully belly flopping into his swimming pool despite the increasingly helpless and desperately profane protestations of his mother.
—Julie Klausner, Vulture, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for belly flop
Cite this Entry
“Belly flop.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belly%20flop. Accessed 4 Jul. 2025.
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