U.S. [Imitative.]
1. An ostentatious display or effort.
1834. R. C. Sands, Writings, II. 179. ‘What a splurge’ (said a Kentucky representative, in one of the favourite and most expressive words of Western invention), ‘what a splurge she makes.’
1864. Boston (Mass.) Commw., 3 June. Manton Marble … has just made a splurge in a letter addressed to the President.
1886. C. D. Warner, Summer in Garden, 152. They make a great deal of ostentatious splurge; and many of them come to no result at last.
2. A heavy splash or downpour.
1879. Sala, Paris Herself Again, II. xvii. 270. The rain came down … in brief but uncomfortable ‘splurges.’
