a. [f. FLASH sb.2 and v. + -Y1. Association with FLASH a.2 and 3 has probably affected some of the senses.]
† 1. Throwing up water, splashing. Obs.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 59.
| Not so great a ruffling the riuer strong flasshye reteyneth | |
| Through the breach owt spurging, eke against bancks sturdely shogging. |
1611. Cotgr., Gaschenx, flashie, plashie, washie, dashing, bespatllng.
2. † a. Over-moist, watery, frothy. † b. Insipid, tasteless, vapid.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Studies (Arb.), 11. Distilled Bookes, are like common distilled Waters, Flashy things.
1658. Evelyn, Fr. Gard. (1675), 198. The other [turnips] being soft, flashy, and insipid.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 41. The taste of them is more sweet and flashy than Groats made of common Oats; they are most natural boyled, as Rice in Milk.
1702. W. J., Bruyn’s Voy. Levant, xxi. 94. They [artichokes] eat not so flashy as when they are Boyled after our Way.
1743. Lond. & Country Brew., IV. (ed. 2), 329. It is not the first flashy, frothy Yeast, that is an Indication of the Drink’s being fit to tun or barrel up.
1771. Ann. Reg., 107/1. The young grass which springs in consequence of a flood, is of so flashy a nature that it occasions this common complaint.
1847. Halliwell, Flashy … loose, unstable, as unsound grass; insipid.
† c. fig. Of persons and immaterial things: Trifling, destitute of solidity or purpose; void of meaning, trashy. Obs.
1597–8. Bp. Hall, Sat., Postscr. It can yeeld nothing but a flashy and loose conceyt to the judgement.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 122.
| And when they list, their lean and flashy songs | |
| Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw. |
1647. Trapp, Comm. Epistles, 146. Their joy is but skin deep, it is but the hypocrisie of mirth, they do not laugh but grin, their hearts ake many times, when their faces counterfeit a smile; Their mirth is frothy and flashy, such as smooths the brow, but fils not the brest, such as wets the mouth, but warms not the heart.
1679. Shadwell, True Widow, III. i. They are a Company of flashy, frothy Fellows, and have no Solidity in them.
1745. J. Mason, Self-Knowl., III. vi. (1853), 202. To read Froth and Trifles all our Life, is the Way always to retain a flashy and juvenile Turn; and only to contemplate our first (which is generally our worst) Knowledge, cramps the Progress of the Understanding, and makes our Self-survey extremely deficient.
3. Giving off flashes, shining by flashes; glittering, sparkling, brilliant. lit. and fig. Also, lasting only for a flash, transitory, momentary.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXIII. xii. 239. So shaken be these shell fishes with the feare of flashie lightenings, that they become emptie.
1630. Prynne, God No Impostor, 13. Reprobates haue oft times many sodaine, transitory, and flashy ioyes, and many good motitions, purposes and resolutions wrought within them by the word.
1682. New News from Bedlam, 28.
| My Gallick Tongue, and my rare flashy Wit, | |
| Shall make the Whigs, and all the Tories split | |
| Themselves with laughings, hums, huzza’s, and after | |
| They’l break their Fasts with merriment and laughter. |
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnotheo, Poet. Wks. 1721, III. 119.
| Thus I soon felt my flashy Goodness fade, | |
| And Sin with greater Force me re-invade. |
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1742), III. 343. For one, who can look forwarder than the Nine Days of Wonder, can easily despise so flashy and so transient a Glare.
1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, April. Mrs. Montagu was in very good spirits, and extremely civil to me, taking my hand, and expressing herself well pleased that I had accompanied Mrs. Thrale hither. She was very flashy, and talked away all the evening; but Miss Gregory was as much disposed to talk herself, and she took to me this night as she did to Mrs. Campbell at Mrs. Ord’s, and, therefore, I could scarce hear a word that Mrs. Montagu said.
1784. C. Burney, Let., 16 Jan., in F. Burney, Early Diary (1889), II. 317. I had a good flashey evening, for Talamas stood behind my chair talking part of the time, and as soon as he crossed over to speak to Mrs. Shadwell, Captain Romney took his place.
1819. H. Busk, Vestriad, IV. 35.
| One ruby glitter’d like the flashy Mars, | |
| With ruddy fire among the fainter stars. |
1816. Scott, Jrnl., 29 March. A fine, flashy, disagreeable day; snow-clouds sweeping past among sunshine, driving down the valley, and whitening the country behind them.
1840. Macaulay, Life & Lett. (1883), II. 81. I will try to make as interesting an article, though I fear not so flashy, as that on Clive.
1884. Manch. Exam., 11 Sept., 5/1. He looks beyond the momentary triumphs of a flashy and adventurous policy.
b. In depreciative sense, chiefly of speech, a speaker, or writer: Superficially bright; brilliant, but shallow; cheaply attractive.
a. 1690. G. Fox, Jrnl. Life, etc., I. 108. The pastor of the baptists (being an high Notionist, and a flashy Man).
1739. Cibber, Apol., v. 107. He [Mountfort] could entirely change himself; could at once throw off the Man of Sense, for the brisk, vain, rude, and lively Coxcomb, the false, flashy Pretender to Wit, and the Dupe of his own Sufficiency.
1823. De Quincey, Lett. Educ., v. (1860), 97. Even upon any one philosophical question, much more upon the fate of a great philosophical system supposed to be sub judice, it is as unworthy of a grave and thoughtful critic to rely upon the second-hand report of a flashy rhetorician.
1835. Browning, Paracelsus, 129.
| And a vast flourish about patient merit | |
| Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure | |
| Sooner or later to emerge in splendour. |
1883. J. H. Morse, The Native Element in American Fiction, in Century Mag., XXVI. 294–5. Of new names, we find Cornelius Mathews, who tried, unsuccessfully, in ‘Behemoth,’ to re-people the West with the ‘Mound-Builders,’ and, later, gave us some fair bits of local coloring in the ‘Career of Puffer Hopkins’ and ‘Moneypenny’; but, as stories, these were cheap and flashy.
† 4. Excited, impulsive, eager. Obs.
1632. Vicars, trans. Virgil’s Æneid, XI. 366.
| Thus spake the ladie, who in this meanwhile | |
| With light-heel’d flashy haste the horse o’retook, | |
| Layes hold on’s bridle, at him fiercely strook. |
1767. Bush, Hibernia Cur. (1769), 22. ’Tis hardly possible, indeed, to make an Irishman, that can in any sense be called a drinker, thoroughly drunk with his claret: by that time he has discharged his five or six bottles, he will get a little flashy, perhaps, and you may drink him to eternity he’ll not be much more.
1781. P. Beckford, Hunting, xlx. 244. I have seen hounds so flashy, that they would break away from the huntsman as soon as they saw a cover; and I have seen the same hounds stop, when they got to the cover side, and not go into it.
5. Showy, fine-looking; gaudy, glaring.
1801. Gabrielli, Myst. Husb., III. 255. They then got into their carriage, a mighty flashy one, to my mind.
1805. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., 14 Jan. The equipment which I propose in that letter, viz., horses sufficient to draw the field train into action, added to, and being a part of, the draught bullock establishment, in time of war and on service, although not so flashy, would be more useful.
1829. Cunningham, Brit. Paint. I. 31. Painted windows, altarpieces, and works of a scriptural character, became common as the episcopal church grew strong. The king encouraged their re-appearance; the dignitaries of the church sanctioned it; and the people, naturally fond of flashy colours and of pomp and show, made no opposition—though the Puritans called it a bowing of the knee to Baal, and a setting up of the image-worship of the Lady of Babylon.
1856. Lever, Martins of Cro’ M., 315. Mr. Herman Merl was a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion—a fact well corroborated by the splendour of a very flashy silk waistcoat, and various studs, gold chain, rings, and trinkets profusely scattered over his costume.
6. Of persons: Given to show, fond of cutting a dash, ‘swellish’; also, vain and conceited.
1687. Congreve, Old Bach., I. iv. It is oftentimes too late with some of you young, termagant, flashy sinners.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Pleas. Epist., Wks. 1730, I. 109. Those flashy Fellows, your Covent-Garden Poets, are good for nothing but to run into our Debts, lie with our Wives, and break unmannerly Jests upon us Citizens; then, like a parcel of Sots, they write for Fame and Immortality.
1787. G. Colman, Inkle & Yarico, II. i. A young flashy Englishman will sometimes carry a whole fortune on his back.
1850. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-bks. (1883), 375. At the counter stand, at almost all hours,—certainly at all hours when I have chanced to observe,—tipplers, either taking a solitary glass, or treating all round, veteran topers, flashy young men, visitors from the country, the various petty officers connected with the law, whom the vicinity of the Court-House brings hither.
7. Comb., as flashy-looking adj.
1852. Earp, Gold Col. Australia, 72. That flashy-looking man in a tandem was transported for bank robbery. He is now one of the richest men in the colony.
1880. Marg. Lonsdale, Sister Dora, viii. 209. To find herself confronted by a flashy-looking man, with conspicuous rings and watch-chain.
