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Webster 1828 Edition

ppr.

Flapping the wings without flight or with short flights; hovering; fluctuating; agitating; throwing into confusion.

Noun.

The act of hovering, or flapping the wings without flight; a wavering agitation.

fluttering ‎(plural flutterings)

Rapid back-and-forth waving or oscillation.
- 1824, Timothy Dwight, Theology, Explained and Defended in a Series of Sermons
  It is indubitably certain, therefore, that he is able to attend, and actually attends, to all things at the same moment; to the motions of a seed, or a leaf, or an atom; to the creepings of a worm, the flutterings of an insect, and the journeys of a mite […]
- 1844, Fredrika Bremer, The Neighbours: A Story of Every-day Life (page 59)
  Miss Greta closed her eyes. Quickly, however, did she open them again; for a dull noise, with certain whiskings-about and flutterings, together with low clatterings, approached her ear.

fluttering