flutter the dovecote

Meanings

1. To create a disturbance, usually within a group of people who are generally placid and unexcited.

Etymology

Possibly from Coriolanus (written c. 1608–1609; published 1623) by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Act V, scene vi (spelling modernized): “[L]ike an eagle in a dovecote, I / Fluttered your Volcians in Corioles.”