Flash in the Pan, subs. phr. (venery).—Connection without emission. Cf.
Dry-Bob (q.v.). Also verbally.
1719. Durfey, Pills, v., 340. Still hawking, still baulking, You
flash in the pan.
Flashy, adj., and Flashily, or Flashly, adv. (old: now colloquial).
Empty; showy; tawdry; insipid.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 123. Their lean and flashy songs Grate on
their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.
1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, Act I., sc. iv. It is oftentimes too
late with some of you young, termagant, flashy sinners.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii., 12. A flashy town beau.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary, (5th ed.) Flashy (a), vain, bragging,
boasting, foolish, empty; also anything waterish and unsavoury.
1755. The World, No. 149. Whose melodious voices give every
syllable (not of a lean and flashy, but of a fat and plump song)
its just emphasis.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 13, (ed. 1854). Vy it be ... the
gemman vot payed you so flashly.
1857. Song in Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 42. Your
fogle you must flashly tie.
1863. Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Nile, p. 154. Flashily
dressed in coloured cloths and a turban, he sat down in one of our
chairs.
1864. Braddon, Henry Dunbar, ch. v. But he evinced no bad taste in
the selection of a costume. He chose no gaudy colours, or flashily
cut vestments.
1873. Cassell’s Magazine, Jan., p. 246, col. 2. They are rather
prone to dress flashily, and wear, when in full fig, no end of
jewellery.
1874. Mortimer Collins, Frances, ch. xvii. That wild set of people
Captain Heath picked up with—members of Parliament and flashy young
women—all driving four horses, I don’t know where.
1882. Century Magazine, xxvi., 295. As stones, they were cheap and
flashy.
Flash-Tail, subs. (common).—A prostitute.—See Tail.
1868. Temple Bar, xxiv., p. 538–9. Picking-up Moll ... a flashtail?
a prostitute who goes about the streets at nights trying to pick up
toffs.
Flasher, subs. (old).—A high-flyer; a fop; a pretender to wit. For
synonyms, see Dandy. Also (quot. 2), a Bonnet (q.v.).
1779. D’Arblay, Diary, etc. (1876). vol. I., p. 185. They are
reckoned the flashers of the place, yet everybody laughs at them
for their airs, affectations, and tonish graces and impertinences.
1880. Derbyshire Gatherer, p. 128. Long before this date (circa
1800) the cant name of flasher was applied to the man who sat by
the table in the gambling-house to swear how many times he had seen
lucky gamesters break the bank.
Flashery, subs. (old).—Inferior, or vulgar, elegance, dash,
distinction, display.
Flash-yad, subs. (back-slang).—A day’s enjoyment. For synonyms, see
Flare-up.
Flashy Blade or Spark, subs. phr. (old).—A dandy (q.v.); now a cheap
and noisy swell, whether male or female; Cf., Flasher.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 104. In youth a nauseous flashy
fop, in elder days a bore.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 40. For though all know that
flashy spark, etc.
Flat, subs. (colloquial).—1. A greenhorn; noddy; gull. For synonyms,
see Buffle and Cabbage-head; also Sammy-soft.
1762. Goldsmith, Life of Nash, in wks. p. 546 (Globe). Why, if you
think me a dab I will get this strange gentleman, or this, pointing
to the flat. Done! cries the sailor, but you shall not tell him.
1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 142. Who are continually
looking out for flats, in order to do them upon the broads, that
is, cards.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 59. Poor Johnny Raw, what
madness could impel, So rum a flat to face so prime a swell.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Misadventures at Margate.’ He’s
been upon the mill, And cos he gammons all the flats we calls him
Veepin Bill.
1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. II., ch. ix. ‘Did he pay you
for her?’ ‘Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutt’s.’ ‘And
you took it? My eyes? what a flat.’
1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xiv. I won two hundred of him at
the Cocoa-tree. He play, the young flat!
1847. Punch, vol. XIII., p. 148. It mayn’t precisely please the
moral flat. You won’t find fault with it, kind friends, for that.
1848. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs, ch. x. When he does play he
always contrives to get hold of a good flat.
1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 39. Fawney-droppers
gammon the flats and take the yokels in.
1866. Yates, Black Sheep, I., p. 70. The genius which had hitherto
been confined to bridging a pack of cards, or ‘securing’ a die,
talking over a flat, or winning money of a greenhorn.
1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in My Garden, vol. II., p. 180.
Their quack medicines that will cure everything, and their sales of
invaluable articles at a loss, and a thousand other devices to
catch flats.
1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good-night. You flats and joskins
great and small.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Sept. 21, p. 3, col. 1 (In a London
Gambling Hell). The flats who play faro (Cross-heading).