Aflutter

Aha! (Hi Everibody 👁 Smile :)
)
For the first time in months, I've found a missing word in the Dictionary!

In the National Geographic website, an item of news reporting the discovery of new Amazon Species describes a new kind of Parrot:

"Birders were when the bald parrot's discovery was announced in 2002, largely because few people could believe such a large and colorful bird could go unnoticed by science."

Is it a common adjective (even in the spoken language) or not?

Can anybody suggest its closest sinonym? I'm really interested in catching the nuances: is it more 'perplexed', 'incredulous' or 'amazed'???

Ooh I like this word. It roughly means excited. To give another example, I might use it if an old friend who I hadn't seen for ages were coming to visit "I can't wait to see him, I can't sit still. I'm all aflutter."

See this previous thread

sdgraham said:

See this previous thread

I don't think this is the same thing. It's not like "I'm a-going to the store."

"Aflutter" has no hyphen and is not colloquial. It's a regular word in the dictionary.

Most of all, "aflutter" is an adjective and not a verb.

Aflutter is in our dictionary, if you set the search to 'English definition'.

We also have an earlier thread: hearts set audibly aflutter.

The thread sdgraham links to on the general subject of the prefix a- is very interesting as well.

Added: Miss Julie is right to point out that we are talking about an adjective here, not a verb. However, in its definition of aflutter, dictionary.com identifies the prefix as the same as the a- used with verbs. It is the first definition of a-:

El_Dodo said:

For the first time in months, I've found a missing word in the Dictionary!

In the National Geographic website, an item of news reporting the discovery of new Amazon spcies describes a new kind of parrot:

"Birders were when the bald parrot's discovery was announced in 2002, largely because few people could believe such a large and colorful bird could go unnoticed by science."

Is it a common adjective (even in the spoken language) or not?

Can anybody suggest its closest synonym [not "sinonym"]? I'm really interested in catching the nuances: is it more 'perplexed', 'incredulous' or 'amazed'?

Aflutter is a common adjective (I do find it in all of my US dictionaries), which simply means excited; "birders" (another term for bird-watchers) are always excited about the discovery of a previously unknown species. "Aflutter" was a particularly apt word for the writer to choose, because it brings to mind the fluttering of a bird's wings.

Miss Julie said:

I don't think this is the same thing. It's not like "I'm a-going to the store."

"Aflutter" has no hyphen and is not colloquial. It's a regular word in the dictionary.

Most of all, "aflutter" is an adjective and not a verb.

The discussion to which rdgraham provided a link is related since it concerns the a- prefix which is a form of the preposition on. The reason it does not have a hyphen in aflutter is that words using this prefix in standard usage have eliminated the hyphen or space. Examples include afloat, abed, and nowadays, while a space remains in expressions such as once a day.

I expect that aflutter is based upon the verb flutter rather than the noun, but have been unable to confirm that since I cannot access the Oxford English Dictionary at the moment.

There is an extensive entry about this a- prefix in The Century Dictionary. Go to that site and do a search for a, then click on JPEG in the Dictionary option, then click on One Page>. The headword is "a3."

(The Century Supplement has an entry for aflutter, and identifies the a- as being a3, but does not specify whether the flutter comes from the noun or the verb.)

Addition: I have now succeeded in accessing the OED. It does not specify whether aflutter is based upon the noun or the verb.

See also: Go all of a flutter.

"A-flutter" has a hyphen for me. I recognise that I'm out of step with other contributors.

Very well!👁 Smile :)

I thank you all for the in-depth analysys. I think I can grasp the main concept now.

Expecially thanks to Herma & Parla for the examples and explanations!

@Cagey, you're right, I only looked up in the Eng-It dictionary at first (my bad).
Sorry, I'm still new here, even though this thread is far more exhaustive than that entry.

I also checked all the links, boys. Really really interesting.