1841. Leman Rede, Sixteen-String Jack, ii., 3. Crissy Odsbuds, I’ll
on with my duds, And over the water we’ll flare.
All of a flare, adv. phr. (thieves’).—Bunglingly.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, p. 113. Some of the
girls at Milberry’s pick pockets at night: while one talks to the
man, the other robs him; but they are not dextrous, they pull it
out all of a flare.
Flaring, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Excessive: e.g., a flaring lie;
flaring drunk; a flaring whore; see Flaming.
Flare-up (or -Out), subs. (popular). An orgie; a fight; an outburst of
temper. Also a spree.
1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 Ser. ch. x. Some of our young
citizens ... got into a flare-up with a party of boatmen that lives
in the Mississippi; a desperate row it was too.
1847. Punch, vol. XIII., p. 148, Address at the Opening of a
Casino. In for flare-up and frolic let us go, And polk it on the
fast fantastic toe.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, I., p. 160. These (hot
eel) dealers generally trade on their own capital; but when some
have been having a flare-up, and have ‘broke down for stock’ to use
the words of my informant, they borrow £1 and pay it back in a week
or a fortnight.
1879. Justin M’Carthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xvii. Paulina had a hard
struggle many a time to keep down her temper, and not to have what
she would have called a flare-out.
English Synonyms.—Barney; batter; bean-feast; beano; breakdown; burst;
booze (specifically a drinking-bout); caper; devil’s delight; dust;
fanteague; fight; flare; flats-yad (back slang); fly; gig; hay-bag;
hell’s delight; high jinks; hooping up; hop; jagg; jamboree; jump;
jun-ketting; lark; drive; randan; on the tiles; on the fly; painting
the town (American); rampage; razzle-dazzle; reeraw; ructions; shake;
shine; spree; sky-wannocking; tear; tear up; toot.
French Synonyms.—La nocerie (popular: une noce à tout casser; or, une
noce de bâtons de chaise = a grand jollification); faire des crêpes (=
to have a rare spree); badouiller (popular: especially applied to
drinking bouts).
Italian Synonym.—Far festa alle campane.
Spanish Synonyms.—Trapisonda (a drunken revel); holgueta.
Verb (common).—To fly into a passion.
1849. Mahoney, Rel. Father Prout, I., 319. ‘Vert-Vert, the Parrot.’
Forth like a Congreave rocket burst, And storm’d and swore, flared
up, and curs’d.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xii. He was in the ‘Cave of
Harmony,’ he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan.
1871. Daily Telegraph, 8 June, ‘Paris in Convalescence.’ On this he
flared up like a Commune conflagration, and cried out, ‘Shame, in
the name of religion, art, and history!’
Flash, subs. (old).—1. The vulgar tongue; the lingo of thieves and
their associates. To patter flash = to talk in thieves’ lingo. [The
derivation of Flash, like that of French argot, is entirely
speculative. It has, however, been generally referred to a district
called Flash (the primary signification as a place name is not clear),
between Buxton Leek and Macclesfield: there lived many chapmen who,
says Dr. Aiken (“Description of Country round Manchester”), ‘were known
as flash-men ... using a sort of slang or cant dialect.’]
1718. Hitchin. The Regulator of Thieves, etc., with Account of
flash words, etc. (Title).
1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 69. Jigger, being cant or
flash for door.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 25. With respect to that
peculiar language called flash, or St. Jiles’ Greek, etc.
1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. viii. Here a tall
gentleman marched up to him, and addressed him in a certain
language, which might be called the freemasonry of flash.
1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 12. ‘What does
he say?’ roared the long drover. ‘He says he don’t understand
flash,’ replied the lady in gentleman’s attire.
1843–4. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg. His cheeks no longer drew the cash.
Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash, He had overdrawn his
badger.
1827. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. Pattered in flash like a covey
knowing.
1864. Athenæum, 29 Oct. The northern village of ill-repute, and
bearing that name (flash) gave to felonious high-flying the term
flash.
1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 278. Why, when the late
Lord Lytton wrote Pelham it was brought against him that ‘his
knowledge of flash was evidently purely superficial.’ Flash, my
sister, is merely recondite slang or thieves’ argot.
English Analogues.—Back Slang or Kacab-Genals (the main principle
consists in roughly pronouncing the word backwards, as erif for fire,
dab for bad, etc.: the practice exists in most languages); Cant (q.v.);
Centre Slang (the central vowel is made the initial letter, vowels and
consonants being added at pleasure); Gammy (North country: mainly
composed of Gypsy words); Gibberish (formed by inserting a consonant
between each syllable of a word, the result being the F, G, H, M or S
gibberish, according to the letter used: thus, “goming mout tom-daym,”
or “gosings outs tos-days?” = going out to-day?); jargon; the Green
Lingo (French thieves’); Marrowskying or Hospital Greek (manufactured
by transferring the initial letters of words; plenty of rain thus
becomes renty of plain: the ‘Gower St. dialect’ of Albert Smith, Mr.
Ledbury); Pedlar’s French (old cant: Florio, 1598; Cotgrave, 1612);
Rhyming Slang (q.v.); Slang (q.v.); St. Giles’ Greek (last century for
Slang as distinguished from Cant); Thieves’ Latin; the Vulgar Tongue;
Yob-gab (q.v.); Notions (q.v.); Ziph (q.v.).
French and other Analogues.—Argot or arguche; la langue verte (properly
gamesters’); le langage soudardant (soldiers’ lingo); le jars; le
jargon jobelin; (Cotgrave, Dictionarie, 1611. Jargon = ‘Gibridge,
fustian language, Pedlar’s French, a barbarous jangling’); le langage
de l’artis; langage en lem (formed by prefixing “l” and adding the
syllable “em,” preceded by the first letter of the word); thus “main”
becomes “lainmem.” A similar mode of dealing with words of more than
one syllable is to replace the first consonant by the letter “l,” the
word being followed by its first syllable preceded by “du”; thus,
“jaquette” becomes “laqueite du jaq,” or if “m” be used as a
key-letter, “maquette du jaq” etc.; le javanais—here the syllable “av”
is interpolated; e.g., “jave l’avai vavu javeudavi” = (je l’ai vu
jeudi). German.—Rothwalsch (from Roter = beggar or vagabond + walsch =
foreign); Gaunersprache (= thieves’ lingo). Italian.—Lingua gerga
(abbreviated into gerga; Florio, 1598 ‘gergo = Pedlar’s French,
fustian, or roguish language, gibbrish’); lingua franca (Levantine:
the source of some English slang); lingua furbesca. Dutch.—Bargoens.
Spanish.—Germania (the Gypsies were supposed to have come from
Germany); jeriganza. Portuguese.—Calaõ (Zincali or Calo = Gypsy).
2. Hence, at one period, especially during the Regency days, the idiom
of the man about town, of Tom and Jerrydom.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. xxix. To the cultivation in
our times, of the Science of Pugilism, the flash language is
indebted for a considerable addition to its treasures.
1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc. They were invariably thieves
and gamblers who used flash formerly; but other kinds of persons,
now-a-day, who may be rippishly inclined, adopt similar terms and
phrases, to evince their uppishness in the affairs of life. These
gentlemen also consider all terms of art and of science as flash;
... of course, those words and sayings which are appropriate to the
turf, the ring, and field sports, are equally considered as flash
by them, and the word has been applied (too generally we allow), to
all this species of quid pro quo lingo.
3. (old).—See quot. and cf., with a Shaksperian gloss of flash = a
burst of wit or merriment.
1748. T. Dyche, Dict. (5th ed.), flash (s.), also a boast, brag, or
great pretence made by a spendthrift, quack, or pretender to more
art or knowledge than he really has.
4. (old).—A showy swindler. (e.g., the Sir Petronel Flash of quot.); a
blustering vulgarian.
1605. Marston, Jonson, and Chapman, Eastward Hoe! iv. 1. ‘Sir
Petronel Flash, I am sorry to see such flashes come from a
gentleman of your quality.’
1632. Shirley, Love in a Maze, i., 2. The town is full of these
vainglorious flashes.