[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The quality of being flashy.
† 1. Want of flavour, insipidity. Obs.
1616. Bacon, Sylva, § 461. The same Experiment may be made in Artichoakes, and other Seeds, when you would take away, either their Flashinesse, or Bitternesse.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 345. What is fish but an unrellished froth of the water, before Salt correcteth the flashiness thereof, and addeth firmness?
fig. a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 481. We could the easier beare the flashinesse and unsavourinesse of the allegories which you commend.
1769. Public Advertiser, 8 June, 4/2. The Insipidity and Flashiness of Quality-prattle.
2. a. Of speech: Superficial brilliance. b. Of dress: Gaudiness, showiness.
1709. Brit. Apollo, II. No. 9. 2/2. The Flashyness of his Discourse, while ill-suited to the misbecoming Gravity of Manhood, has nothing to recommend it so much as to our Bearance.
1854. Hawthorne, Eng. Note-bks. (1879), I. 163. Always well dressed, with some little touch of sailor-like flashiness, but not a whit too much.
