Chiefly colloq. [f. FLASH sb.2]
1. Gaudy, showy, smart. Of persons: Dashing, ostentatious, swaggering, ‘swell.’
1785. European Mag., VIII. Aug., 96/2. One of that numerous tribe of flash fellows, who live nobody knows where, and who have always cash in their pockets nobody can tell how.
1836. J. H. Newman, Lett. (1891), II. 200. If I could write a flash article on the subjunctive mood, I would, merely to show how clever I was; but I fear I can’t.
1838. C. Sumner, in Mem. & Lett. (1878), II. 23. Bulwer was here a few minutes ago in his flash falsetto dress, with high-heel boots, a white great coat, and a flaming blue cravat.
1860. Trollope, Framley P., ix. If the dear friendship of this flash member of Parliament did not represent that value, what else did do so?
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flash Vessels, all paint outside and no order within.
1877. Black, Green Past., xliii. (1878), 348. A bit of flash oratory on the part of a paid pleader may cost a man a couple of thousand pounds in the face of common sense and justice.
1882. Illustr. Sporting News, 4 Feb., 502/2. A flash young rider … frightens his horse out of his stride before they have well reached the distance.
b. Of an hotel, etc.: First-class, fashionable, ‘crack,’ ‘swell.’
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk.-bk. (1872), 89. He had as many frogs on his coat as in the old days, and frequented all the flash restaurateurs’ and boarding-houses of the capital.
1841. in Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 210. We then got into Meurice’s flash hotel, where there are now 150 English, and which is more like a barrack than an inn for comfort.
2. Counterfeit, not genuine, sham.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. Feb., 210/2.
| How could’st thou be so silly, | |
| Flash screens to ring for home-spun rope: | |
| Oh, hapless Slender Billy! |
1821. Ann. Reg., 193/2. Passed for the purpose of suppressing the ‘Fleet’ or ‘flash notes,’ which were found to be made the instruments of serious frauds.
1837. Hood, Agric. Distress, vii.
| ‘A note!’ says he, half mad with passion, | |
| ‘Why, thou dom’d fool, thou ’st took a flash ’un!’ |
1863. R. B. Kimball, Was he Successful? xii. 138. He saw quickly the difference between the real and the flash fashionable.
3. slang. Knowing, wide-awake, ‘smart,’ ‘fly.’
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Half-flash and half-foolish, this character is applied sarcastically to a person, who has a smattering of the cant language, and having associated a little with family people, pretends to a knowledge of life which he really does not possess, and by this conduct becomes an object of ridicule among his acquaintance.
1818. Sporting Mag., II. 217. Immense sums of money have been lost by the very flashest of the cognoscenti.
1839. H. Ainsworth, J. Sheppard, I. xii. 339. ‘Awake!—to be sure I am, my flash cove!’ replied Sheppard.
4. Belonging to, connected with or resembling, the class of sporting men, esp. the patrons of the ‘ring.’
1807. Sporting Mag., XXX. June, 126/1. He … was a sort of flash man upon the town, first ingratiating himself into the good opinions of unsuspecting females, then marrying them, possessing himself of their property, and afterwards abandoning them. Ibid. (1809), XXXIII. Feb., 228/1. Crib, who was backed by what is termed the flash side.
1823. Byron, Juan, XI. xvii.
| Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town, | |
| A thorough varmint, and a real swell, | |
| Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled, | |
| His pockets first, and then his body, riddled. |
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xix. A gentleman with a flushed face and a flash air.
1862. Whyte Melville, Inside Bar, iv. (ed. 12), 267. Perhaps, after the departure of the flash butcher, everything seemed by comparison tame and insipid.
1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, xi. The speaker was one of the flash young gentlemen who haunt suburban billiard-rooms, who carry chalk in their pockets, and call the marker ‘Jack.’
5. Connected with or pertaining to the class of thieves, tramps, and prostitutes. Chiefly in Comb., as flash-case (= FLASH-HOUSE), -cove, -crib, -ken. Also FLASH-HOUSE, FLASH-MAN.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Flash-ken, a House where Thieves use, and are connived at.
1718. C. Hitchin, Receivers & Thief-Takers, 8. A Ken or House frequented by the Thieves and Thief-Takers, or, in their own dialect, thoroughly Flash.
1800. Sporting Mag., XVI. April, 26/2. Mack and I called at a flash ken in St. Giles’s. Ibid. (1819), V. Dec., 122/2. Grose too, with all his professed knowledge of SLANG, and who was even dictionary-proof upon this subject, it turns out, was nothing more than a mere compiler of phrases, imperfectly picked up, and set down by rote, instead of giving a portraiture of the flash part of the creation, which has a language, manners, dress, and movements, exclusively its own.
1823. Egan, Grose’s Dict. Vulg. Tong., Flash Cove or Covess, the master or mistress of the house.
1832. Examiner, 684/1. She has been the associate of ‘flash thieves.’
1839. H. Ainsworth, J. Sheppard, I. xi. 322. ‘The Black Lion!’ echoed Terence, ‘I know the house well; by the same token that it’s a flash crib.’ Ibid., III. xii. 28. I’ve been to all the flash cases in town, and can hear nothing of him or his wives.
b. esp. of the language spoken by thieves: Cant, slang. Also quasi-sb.
A statement made by Dr. Atkin, Country round Manchester (1795), 437, that ‘flash’ language was so called because spoken by pedlars from a place called Flash near Macclesfield, is often repeated, but is of no authority.
1746. Narr. Exploits H. Simms, in Borrow, Zincali (1843), II. 129. They … began to talk their Flash Language, which I did not then understand.
1756. Toldervy, Hist. Two Orph., II. 79. Copper learnt flash, and to blow the trumpet.
1782. G. Parker, Hum. Sk., 34. No more like a Kiddy he’ll roll the flash song.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. (1819), 173. To speak good flash is to be well versed in cant terms.
1840. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, Her Misery, xviii.
| His cheeks no longer drew the cash, | |
| Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash, | |
| ‘He had overdrawn his badger.’ |
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Montaigne, Wks. (Bohn), I. 343. He will talk with sailors and gipsies, use flash and street ballads.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t. (1891), 257. It was ‘rum’ to hear me ‘pitchin’ into fellers’ for ‘goin’ it in the slang line,’ when I used all the flash words myself just when I pleased.
Hence Flashly adv. (slang), in a flash manner; handsomely, elegantly. Also, in flash language.
1811. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. Oct., 19/2. Whether the impression of having been before beat by the champion was the cause of a sort of despondency, flashly termed fencing, or whether a want of patronage by the higher orders in the fancy, had preyed on Molineux’s spirits, we are not in the secret to know.
1857. ‘Ducange Anglicus,’ Vulg. Tongue, 42, ‘The Leary Man,’ iv.
| Your fogle you must flashly tie, | |
| Each word must patter flashery, | |
| And hit cove’s head to smashery, | |
| To be a Leary Man. |
