[f. FLASH v.1 + -ER.] One who or that which flashes.
† 1. One who splashes water. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Gascheur … also, a flasher or dasher of water.
1736. Ainsworth, A flasher of water, aspersor.
2. Something which emits flashes of light.
1686. J. Goad, Astro-meteorologica, II. iv. 198. They were Spit-Fires, Thunderers and Flashers, had their Heats and Droughts, and Violences too.
† 3. One of the attendants on a gaming table (see quot.). Obs.
1731. in Malcolm, Manners & Cust. Lond. (1808), 166. A Flasher, to swear how often the bank has been stripped.
1756. W. Toldervy, Hist. Two Orphans, I. 68. [He] had often sate a flasher at M … d … g … n’s.
1797. Sporting Mag., X. Sept., 312/1. A Flasher, to swear how often the Bank had been stripped.
† 4. A person of brilliant appearance or accomplishment.
1755. Johnson (citing Dict.), Flasher, a man of more appearance of wit than reality.
1779. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, Oct., I. 260. They are reckoned the flashers of the place, yet everybody laughs at them for their airs, affectations, and tonish graces and impertinences. Ibid. (1780), May, I. 333. The celebrated Sir John Harrington, who was godson of Queen Elizabeth, and one of the gayest writers and flashers of her reign.
5. The workman who ‘flashes’ glass (see quot.).
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 582, s.v. Glass-making He next hands it to the flasher, who resting the iron rod in a hook placed near the side of the orifice, wheels it rapidly round opposite to a powerful flame, till it assumes first the figure o, and finally that of a flat circular table.
6. (See quot.)
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 876/2. Flasher. (Steam.) A form of steam-boiler in which small bodies of water are injected into a heated boiler and flashed into steam, sufficient being injected at each time for one stroke.
7. a. ‘A name of the lesser butcher-bird: see Flusher’ (Ogilvie, 1882).
b. A fish (Lobotes surinamensis).
1882. Jordan & Gilbert, Fishes N. Amer., 555.
