Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a euph. for fucking adj. (1); esp. in flipping heck! fucking hell!; also as adv.

1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 12: Flipping heroes, ain’t we all?
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 21: I started asking questions and got told to flipping well mind my own flipping business.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene x: Where’s that flippin’ grub?
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 51: I was behind the flippin’ wheel, if you don’t mind!
1975		A. Bleasdale Scully 65: ‘Flippin’ ’eck,’ Mooey said in the end.
1988		B. Humphries Complete Barry McKenzie 11: Reckon the Aussie brewery must have paid him a flippin’ fortune.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 367: What’s all this then – these are flippin’ private pictures.
2005		BBC Radio London 17 Nov. [furniture store advert] The sofa is a right flippin’ mess.
2010		Sun. Times Mag. 19 Dec. 82/4: Why didn’t I do that flippin’ homework.
2011		NY Rev. Books 17 Mar. 🌐 This may flippin’ take me all day.
2017		Observer (London) New Rev. 19 Feb. 7/3: ‘At school, I was horrible and flipping annoying’.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 226: ‘This is not a problem. [...] Just needs a little TCL.’ A snort from Miles. ‘You need to get your TLAs in the RFO.’ ‘Three letter acronyms,’ Alison explained [...] ‘right flipping order?’.

2. (US campus) splendid.

1966		Current Sl. I:2 2/2: Flippin’, adj. Highly admirable.
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 68: ‘So, how was the action this summer, Danny?’ [...] ‘Flippin.’.