WITH SYNONYMS IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, ETC.

COMPILED AND EDITED BY JOHN S. FARMER and W. E. HENLEY.

VOL. III.—Fla. to Hyps. PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. MDCCCXCIII.

labbergast, verb. (colloquial). To astound; to stagger, either physically or mentally. [O. E., flab = to frighten + gast = to scare.] Fr., abalober; baba (from ébahi = astounded); épater (= flatten out). Sp., quedarse de, or hecho, una pieza (= ‘knocked all of a heap’). See Floored.

1772. Annual Register, ‘On New Words.’ Now we are flabbergasted and bored from morning to night.

1823. Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc., p. 79. His colleagues were flabbergasted when they heard of Castlereagh’s sudden death.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (‘Brothers of Birchington’). He was quite flabbergasted to see the amount.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 261. We rather just imagine they will be not a little puzzled and flabbergasted to discover the meaning or wit of some of those elegant phrases.

1864. Derby Day, p. 67. You’re sort of flabbergasted. It’s taken all the wind out of you like, and you feel like an old screw a blowing up Highgate Hill.

1889. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 18 Jan. Poor Clarke was completely flabbergasted.

1891. National Observer, 1 Aug. In no other sport is the laudator temporis acti so completely flabbergasted as here.

Flabberdegaz, subs. (theatrical).—Words interpolated to dissemble a lapse of memory; gag (q.v.). Also, imperfect utterance or bad acting.

Flag, subs. (old).—1. A groat, or fourpenny piece. Also Flagg, and Flagge. For synonyms, see Joey.

1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Roge. But a flagge, a wyn, and a make. (But a groat, a penny, and a half-penny.)

1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 38 (H. Club’s Rept. 1874) s.v.

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4th ed.), p. 12, s.v.

1725. Jonathan Wild, Canting Dict., s.v.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 269. A tremendous black doll bought for a flag (fourpence) of a retired rag-merchant.

2. (common).—An apron; hence a badge of office or trade; cf., Flag-flasher. Equivalents are Belly-cheat and Fig-leaf.

1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 232 (List of patterer’s words), s.v.

1872. Dundee Advertiser, 20 April; ‘Report of Meeting of Domestic Servants.’ It was contended that they were compelled to wear what was generally known as a flag.

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Straight Tip. Suppose you try a different tack, And on the square you flash your flag.

3. (obsolete).—A jade.

1539. David Lyndsay, Thrie Estaitis. Works [Ed. Laing, 1879], ii. 109. Ane fistand flag.

4. (common).—The menstrual cloth. Variants are bandage; clout; danger-signal; diaper; double clout (Durfey); gentleman’s pleasure garden padlock; periodicity rag; the red rag; sanitary towel; window-curtain.

The Flag (or Danger-Signal) is up = “The Captain’s at home” (Grose), i.e., the menstrual flux is on.

English Synonyms.—To have domestic afflictions, or the D.A.’s; to have the flowers (q.v.); to have one’s grandmother, or little friend, or auntie, with one; to have them (or it) on; to be in a state of ‘no thoroughfare’; to have the red rag on; to be road-making; to have the street up for repairs; to be at Number One, London; to have ‘the gate locked and the key lost.’

French Synonyms.—Avoir ses cardinales (literally, to have one’s reds); avoir les histoires; avoir les affaires (common); avoir ses anglais (in allusion to the scarlet of English soldiers); broyer des tomates (= tomato-crushing); avoir son marquis (Cotgrave); avoir les fleurs rouges; avoir sa chemise tachée (Cotgrave); voir Sophie; avoir les ordinaires.

Italian Synonyms.—Marchese (Florio), marchesano (= menses. Michel says, Art. marque = a month, a woman. “Il ne saurait être douteux que ce nom ne soit venu à cette division de l’année, de l’infirmité périodique qu’ont les marques, ou femmes, lors que la Lune, pour tenir sa diette et vaquer à ses purifications menstruelles, fait marquer les logis feminins par son fourrier, lequel pour escusson n’a que son impression rouge”).

To Fly the Flag, verb. phr. (tailors’).—To post a notice that ‘hands’ are wanted. See also Fly the Flag, post.

Flag of Defiance, subs. phr. (old nautical).—A drunken roysterer. For synonyms, see Elbow-crooker.

To hang out the flag of defiance (or bloody flag), verb. phr.—To be continuously drunk. [An allusion to the ‘crimson face’ (Cotgrave) and the pugnacity of certain terms of inebriety.] For synonyms, see rinks.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. The flag of defiance is out (among the Tarrs) the Fellow’s Face is very Red, and he is Drunk.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Flag-flasher, subs. (common).—One sporting a badge or other ensign of office (cap, apron, uniform, etc.) when off duty.—Cf., Flag, sense 2.

Flag-about, subs. (old).—A strumpet. [From Flag, a paving-stone]. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

Flag-Flying.—See Flag.

Flag of Distress, subs. phr. (common).—1. A card announcing ‘lodgings,’ or ‘board and lodgings.’ Hence, any overt sign of poverty.

2. (common).—A flying shirt-tail; in America, a letter in the post-office (q.v.).

Flagger, subs. (common).—A street-walker. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1865. Daily Paper, ‘Police Report.’ She wasn’t a low sort at all—she wasn’t a Flagger, as we call it. So I replies, ‘I am well, thankee; and am happy to say I feel as such.’

Flags, subs. (common).—Linen drying and flying in the wind. For synonyms, see Snow.

Flag Unfurled, subs. phr. (rhyming).—A man of the world.

Flag-Wagging, subs. (military).—Flag-signal drill.

Flam, subs. (colloquial).—Nonsense (for synonyms, see Gammon); humbug; flattery; or, a lie: as a regular flam (for synonyms, see Whopper). Cf. FLim-flam.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, [Cf., Flim-flam.]

1647. Beaumont and Fletcher, Humourous Lieutenant, iv., 1. With some new flam or other, nothing to the matter.

1664. Butler, Hudibras, pt. II., ch. iii., p. 29. A flam more senseless than the roguery of old aruspicey and aug’ry.

1742–4. Roger North, Lives of the Norths, ch. i., p. 368. They must have known his Lordship better and not have ventured such flams at him.

1760. Foote, Minor, Act II. Had the flam been fact, your behaviour was natural enough.

1762. Foote, Liar, bk. II., ch. ii. Can’t you discern that this flam of Sir James Elliot’s is a mere fetch to favour his retreat?

1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 298 (ed. 1854). Harry … told you as ow it was all a flam about the child in the bundle!

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 325. No trick nor flam, but your real Schiedam.

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. ii. And their pockets full they crams by their patriotic flams, And then swear ’tis for the good of the nation.

1850. D. Jerrold, The Catspaw, Act II. Though the story of that scoundrel Coolcard, Augustus Coolcard—and I was never before deceived—never—is a flam—all a flam.

1870. London Figaro, 22 Sept. Is not your boasted power a flam?

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good Night. You flymy titters fond of flam.

2. (old).—A single stroke on the drum.—[Grose, 1785.]

Adj. (old).—False.

1692. Sprat, Relation of Young’s Contrivance (Harl. Misc. vi. 224). To amuse him the more in his search, she addeth a flam story that she had got his hand by corrupting one of the letter-carriers in London.

Verb (colloquial).—1. To take in; to flatter; to lie; to foist or fob off. flamming = lying.

1658. Rowley and Ford, &c., Witch of Edm., ii., 2. Was this your cunning? and then flam me off with an old witch, two wives, and Winnifride.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, II. in wks. (1720) iv. 41. Does he think to flam me with a lye?

1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. v. But I’ll show him whether or not I, for one of them, am to be jeered and flammed with impunity.

1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xxviii. How she did flam that poor old Domine.

(American University).—To affect, or prefer, female society; to Grouse (q.v.). [A corruption of flame (q.v.)]. See Molrowing.

Flambustious, adj. (American).—Showy; gaudy; pleasant.

1868. Putnam’s Magazine. We will have a flambustious time. [Cf., Shakspeare (1608), Antony and Cleopatra, iii., 11. Let’s have one other gaudy night.]

Flamdoodle, subs. (American).—Nonsense; vain boasting. Probably a variant of flapdoodle (q.v.).

1888. New York Sun. We wasn’t goin’ to have any high falutin’ flamdoodle business over him.

Flame, subs. (colloquial).—1. A sweetheart; a mistress in keeping. Old flame = an old lover; a cast-off mistress. Also (2) a venereal disease.

b. 1664. d. 1721. Mathew Prior [in Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics,” ed. 1885]. Euphelia serves to grace my measure, but Chloe is my real flame.

1757. Foote, Author, Act I. Let’s see, Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader, and your flame, the sister, as I live.

1846–8. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xiv. On this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia was engaged to be married to a Lieutenant Osborne, a very old flame.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

Flamer, subs. (colloquial).—A man, woman, thing, or incident above the common. [Literally conspicuous to flaming point, i.e., as a light in the dark]. For synonyms, see Stunner.

1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, ch. ii. Concocting a criticism on the evening’s performance, which certainly was, according to the signor’s own acknowledgment, a regular flamer.

Flames, subs. (old).—A red-haired person. Cf., Carrots and Ginger.

1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc., p. 79. Who should I fling my precious ogles upon but flames—she as lived at the ‘Blue Posts.’

Flaming, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—Conspicuous; ardent; stunning (q.v.). For synonyms, see A 1 and Fizzing.

1738. Swift, Polite Conv., Dialogue II. Lord Sparkish. My Lady Smart, your ladyship has a very fine scarf. Lady Smart. Yes, my lord, it will make a flaming figure in a country church.

1776. Rubrick, The Spleen, ii. I’ll send a flaming paragraph of their wedding to all the newspapers.

1872. Besant and Rice. Ready Money Mortiboy, ch. xxx. He called one of the children, and sent her for a bill. She presently returned with a flaming poster.

Flanderkin, subs. (old).—See quot.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. A very large fat man or horse; also natives of that country.

Flanders Fortunes, subs. phr. (old).—Of small substance.—B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew (1690).

Flanders Pieces, subs. phr. (old).—See quot.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flanders pieces, pictures that look fair at a distance, but coarser near at hand.

Flank, verb (common).—1. To crack a whip; also, to hit a mark with the lash of one.

1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford (ed. 1854), p. 18. He then, taking up a driving whip, flanked a fly from the opposite wall.

1833. ‘An Anglo-sapphic Ode’ (Whibley, Cap and Gown, p. 136). Kicks up a row, gets drunk, or flanks a tandem whip out of window.

2. (colloquial).—To deliver—a blow or a retort; to push; to hustle; to quoit (Shakspeare). Fr., flanquer: as in flanquer à la porte, and Je lui at flanqué un fameux coup de pied au cul!

A Plate of Thin Flank, subs. phr. (common).—A ‘sixpenny cut’ off the joint. See N. Twill in Fancy Too Late for Dinner.

To Flank the whole bottle, verb. phr. (American soldiers’).—To dodge, i.e., to outflank, to achieve by strategy. For synonyms, see Stick.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 286. When the men wished to escape the attention of pickets and guards by slipping past them, they said they flanked them; drill, and detail, and every irksome duty was flanked, when it could be avoided by some cunning trick. Soon, however, honesty itself was thus treated, and the poor farmer was flanked out of his pig and his poultry, and not infrequently even the comrade out of his pipe and tobacco, if not his rations. The height of strategy was employed in these various flank manœuvres, when the Commissary could be made to surrender some of his whiskey, and thus it came about, in the South at least, that to flank the whole bottle was a phrase expressive of superlative cunning and brilliant success.

Flanker, subs. (common).—A blow; a retort; a kick. Cf., Flank, sense 1.

Flankey, subs. (common).—The posteriors. For synonyms, see Blind Cheeks and Monocular Eyeglass.

1848. Duncombe, Sinks of London, s.v.

Flannel. See Hot Flannel.

Flannels. To get one’s flannels, verb. phr. (schools’).—To get a place in the school football or cricket teams, or in the boats. Cf., ‘to get one’s colours,’ or ‘one’s blue.’

Flap, subs. (thieves’).—1. Sheet-lead used for roofing. Fr., doussin; noir. Cf., Bluey.

2. (old).—A blow.

1539. David Lyndsay, Thrie Estaitis. Works [Laing, 1879], ii. 73. And to begin the play, tak thair ane flap.

Verb (thieves’).—1. To rob; to swindle. For synonyms, see Prig and Stick.

2. (common).—To pay; ‘to fork out.’ Cf., Flap the Dimmock.

3. (venery).—To possess a woman. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

To Flap a Jay, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To swindle a greenhorn; to sell a pup (q.v.).

1885. Daily Telegraph, Aug. 18th, p. 3., col. 1. He and three others of the ‘division’ had ‘cut up’ £70 between them, obtained by flapping a jay, which, rendered into intelligible English, means plundering a simple-minded person.

To Flap the Dimmock, verb. phr. (common).—To pay. [From Flap, a verb of motion + Dimmock = money]. Cf., Flap.

Flapdoodle, subs. (colloquial).—1. Transparent nonsense; “kid.”

Also Flamdoodle and Flam-sauce, or Flap-sauce. For synonyms, see Gammon.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xxviii. ‘It’s my opinion, Peter, that the gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime.’ ‘What’s that, O’Brien,’ replied I. ‘Why, Peter, it’s the stuff they feed fools on.’

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford. I shall talk to our regimental doctors about it, and get put through a course of fools’ diet—flapdoodle they call it, what fools are fed on.

1884. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Huck. Finn, xxv., 247. A speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased [deceased].

2. (venery).—The penis. (Urquhart). For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.

To talk Flapdoodle, verb. phr. (American).—To brag; to talk nonsense.

1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Mar. 2. Possibly rich men will turn from sharp dealing, from debauchery, from flapdoodle fashion to a common-sense recognition of a situation, which clearly shows that wealth is no longer what it used to be—autocratic, absolute, the ruler of all else.

Flapdoodler, subs. (American).—A braggart agitator; one that makes the eagle squeal (q.v.).

Flap-dragon, subs. (old).—The pox or clap (q.v.). For synonyms, see Ladies’ Fever.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. Flapdragon, a clap or pox.

Verb. (old).—To gulp down hastily, as in the game of flap-dragon.

1604. Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. 3. But, to make an end of the ship: to see how the sea flap-dragoned it!

Flapman, subs. (prison).—A convict promoted for good behaviour to first or second class.

Flapper, subs. (common).—1. The hand; also flapper-shaker. For synonyms, see Daddle and Mauley.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. vii. My Dear Mr. Simple, extend your flapper to me for I’m delighted to see you.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogues’ Lexicon, s.v.

1866. London Miscellany, May 19, p. 235. ‘There’s my flapper on the strength of it.’ Guy shook hands with the eccentric stranger heartily.

2. (common).—A little girl. [Also a fledgling wild duck.]

3. (venery).—A very young prostitute; cf., sense 2.

4. (common).—A dustman’s or coal-heaver’s hat; a fantail (q.v.).

5. (in. pl.).—Very long-pointed shoes worn by ‘nigger’ minstrels.

6. (venery).—The penis. (For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick).

7. (colloquial).—A parasite; a remembrancer. (Cf. Swift, Gulliver, ‘Laputa.’)

Flapper-shaking, subs. (common).—Hand-shaking.

1853. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. II., ch. iv. Wondering whether … if the joining palms in a circus was the customary flapper-shaking before ‘toeing the scratch’ for business.

Flap-sauce. See Flapdoodle.

Flare, subs. (nautical).—1. Primarily a stylish craft; hence, by implication, anything out of the common. For synonyms, see Stunner.

2. (colloquial).—A row; a dispute; a ‘drunk’; or spree. Cf., flare-up.

Verb. (thieves’).—1. Specifically to whisk out; hence, to steal actively, lightly, or delicately.

1850. Lloyd’s Weekly, 3 Feb. Low Lodging Houses of London. B. tried his pocket saying, ‘I’ll show you how to do a hankerchief; but the baker looked round and B. stopped; and just after that I flared it (whisked the handerchief out); and that’s the first I did.’

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, I., 457. Just after that I flared it (a handerchief).

2. (common).—To swagger; to go with a bounce.

1841. Leman Rede, Sixteen-String Jack, ii., 3. Crissy Odsbuds, I’ll on with my duds, And over the water we’ll flare.

All of a flare, adv. phr. (thieves’).—Bunglingly.

1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, p. 113. Some of the girls at Milberry’s pick pockets at night: while one talks to the man, the other robs him; but they are not dextrous, they pull it out all of a flare.

Flaring, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Excessive: e.g., a flaring lie; flaring drunk; a flaring whore; see Flaming.

Flare-up (or -Out), subs. (popular). An orgie; a fight; an outburst of temper. Also a spree.

1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 Ser. ch. x. Some of our young citizens … got into a flare-up with a party of boatmen that lives in the Mississippi; a desperate row it was too.

1847. Punch, vol. XIII., p. 148, Address at the Opening of a Casino. In for flare-up and frolic let us go, And polk it on the fast fantastic toe.

1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, I., p. 160. These (hot eel) dealers generally trade on their own capital; but when some have been having a flare-up, and have ‘broke down for stock’ to use the words of my informant, they borrow £1 and pay it back in a week or a fortnight.

1879. Justin M’Carthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xvii. Paulina had a hard struggle many a time to keep down her temper, and not to have what she would have called a flare-out.

English Synonyms.—Barney; batter; bean-feast; beano; breakdown; burst; booze (specifically a drinking-bout); caper; devil’s delight; dust; fanteague; fight; flare; flats-yad (back slang); fly; gig; hay-bag; hell’s delight; high jinks; hooping up; hop; jagg; jamboree; jump; jun-ketting; lark; drive; randan; on the tiles; on the fly; painting the town (American); rampage; razzle-dazzle; reeraw; ructions; shake; shine; spree; sky-wannocking; tear; tear up; toot.

French Synonyms.—La nocerie (popular: une noce à tout casser; or, une noce de bâtons de chaise = a grand jollification); faire des crêpes (= to have a rare spree); badouiller (popular: especially applied to drinking bouts).

Italian Synonym.—Far festa alle campane.

Spanish Synonyms.—Trapisonda (a drunken revel); holgueta.

Verb (common).—To fly into a passion.

1849. Mahoney, Rel. Father Prout, I., 319. ‘Vert-Vert, the Parrot.’ Forth like a Congreave rocket burst, And storm’d and swore, flared up, and curs’d.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xii. He was in the ‘Cave of Harmony,’ he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan.

1871. Daily Telegraph, 8 June, ‘Paris in Convalescence.’ On this he flared up like a Commune conflagration, and cried out, ‘Shame, in the name of religion, art, and history!’

Flash, subs. (old).—1. The vulgar tongue; the lingo of thieves and their associates. To patter flash = to talk in thieves’ lingo. [The derivation of Flash, like that of French argot, is entirely speculative. It has, however, been generally referred to a district called Flash (the primary signification as a place name is not clear), between Buxton Leek and Macclesfield: there lived many chapmen who, says Dr. Aiken (“Description of Country round Manchester”), ‘were known as flash-men … using a sort of slang or cant dialect.’]

1718. Hitchin. The Regulator of Thieves, etc., with Account of flash words, etc. (Title).

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 69. Jigger, being cant or flash for door.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 25. With respect to that peculiar language called flash, or St. Jiles’ Greek, etc.

1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. viii. Here a tall gentleman marched up to him, and addressed him in a certain language, which might be called the freemasonry of flash.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 12. ‘What does he say?’ roared the long drover. ‘He says he don’t understand flash,’ replied the lady in gentleman’s attire.

1843–4. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg. His cheeks no longer drew the cash. Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash, He had overdrawn his badger.

1827. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. Pattered in flash like a covey knowing.

1864. Athenæum, 29 Oct. The northern village of ill-repute, and bearing that name (flash) gave to felonious high-flying the term flash.

1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 278. Why, when the late Lord Lytton wrote Pelham it was brought against him that ‘his knowledge of flash was evidently purely superficial.’ Flash, my sister, is merely recondite slang or thieves’ argot.

English Analogues.—Back Slang or Kacab-Genals (the main principle consists in roughly pronouncing the word backwards, as erif for fire, dab for bad, etc.: the practice exists in most languages); Cant (q.v.); Centre Slang (the central vowel is made the initial letter, vowels and consonants being added at pleasure); Gammy (North country: mainly composed of Gypsy words); Gibberish (formed by inserting a consonant between each syllable of a word, the result being the F, G, H, M or S gibberish, according to the letter used: thus, “goming mout tom-daym,” or “gosings outs tos-days?” = going out to-day?); jargon; the Green Lingo (French thieves’); Marrowskying or Hospital Greek (manufactured by transferring the initial letters of words; plenty of rain thus becomes renty of plain: the ‘Gower St. dialect’ of Albert Smith, Mr. Ledbury); Pedlar’s French (old cant: Florio, 1598; Cotgrave, 1612); Rhyming Slang (q.v.); Slang (q.v.); St. Giles’ Greek (last century for Slang as distinguished from Cant); Thieves’ Latin; the Vulgar Tongue; Yob-gab (q.v.); Notions (q.v.); Ziph (q.v.).

French and other Analogues.—Argot or arguche; la langue verte (properly gamesters’); le langage soudardant (soldiers’ lingo); le jars; le jargon jobelin; (Cotgrave, Dictionarie, 1611. Jargon = ‘Gibridge, fustian language, Pedlar’s French, a barbarous jangling’); le langage de l’artis; langage en lem (formed by prefixing “l” and adding the syllable “em,” preceded by the first letter of the word); thus “main” becomes “lainmem.” A similar mode of dealing with words of more than one syllable is to replace the first consonant by the letter “l,” the word being followed by its first syllable preceded by “du”; thus, “jaquette” becomes “laqueite du jaq,” or if “m” be used as a key-letter, “maquette du jaq” etc.; le javanais—here the syllable “av” is interpolated; e.g., “jave l’avai vavu javeudavi” = (je l’ai vu jeudi). German.—Rothwalsch (from Roter = beggar or vagabond + walsch = foreign); Gaunersprache (= thieves’ lingo). Italian.—Lingua gerga (abbreviated into gerga; Florio, 1598 ‘gergo = Pedlar’s French, fustian, or roguish language, gibbrish’); lingua franca (Levantine: the source of some English slang); lingua furbesca. Dutch.—Bargoens. Spanish.—Germania (the Gypsies were supposed to have come from Germany); jeriganza. Portuguese.—Calaõ (Zincali or Calo = Gypsy).

2. Hence, at one period, especially during the Regency days, the idiom of the man about town, of Tom and Jerrydom.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. xxix. To the cultivation in our times, of the Science of Pugilism, the flash language is indebted for a considerable addition to its treasures.

1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc. They were invariably thieves and gamblers who used flash formerly; but other kinds of persons, now-a-day, who may be rippishly inclined, adopt similar terms and phrases, to evince their uppishness in the affairs of life. These gentlemen also consider all terms of art and of science as flash; … of course, those words and sayings which are appropriate to the turf, the ring, and field sports, are equally considered as flash by them, and the word has been applied (too generally we allow), to all this species of quid pro quo lingo.

3. (old).—See quot. and cf., with a Shaksperian gloss of flash = a burst of wit or merriment.

1748. T. Dyche, Dict. (5th ed.), flash (s.), also a boast, brag, or great pretence made by a spendthrift, quack, or pretender to more art or knowledge than he really has.

4. (old).—A showy swindler. (e.g., the Sir Petronel Flash of quot.); a blustering vulgarian.

1605. Marston, Jonson, and Chapman, Eastward Hoe! iv. 1. ‘Sir Petronel Flash, I am sorry to see such flashes come from a gentleman of your quality.’

1632. Shirley, Love in a Maze, i., 2. The town is full of these vainglorious flashes.

5. (old).—A peruke or perriwig.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. Rum flash, a fine long wig. Queer flash, a miserable weather-beaten caxon.

6. (common).—A portion; a drink; or go (q.v.). Cf., Flash of Lightning, sense 1.

Adj. (common).—1. Relating to thieves, their habits, customs, devices, lingo, etc.

1782. Geo. Parker, Humorous Sketches, p. 34. No more like a kiddy he’ll roll the flash song.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ‘Long Ned’s Song.’ And rarely have the gentry flash, In sprucer clothes been seen.

1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. viii. I suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 448. I have seen Cheeks (a flash name for an accomplice).

1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, II., 244. He used some flash words, and they were shown into a public room.

1864. Cornhill Magazine, ii., 336. In the following verse, taken from a pet flash song, you have a comic specimen of this sort of guilty chivalry.

2. (thieves’).—Knowing; expert; showy. Cf., down, fly, wide-awake, etc. Hence (popularly), by a simple transition, vulgarly counterfeit, showily shoddy: possibly the best understood meanings of the word in latter-day English. To put one flash to anything = to put him on his guard; to inform.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 19. Another philosopher, Seneca, has shown himself equally flash on the subject.

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 17. Laying aside the knowing look, and flash air, with which he had repeated the previous anecdote.

1836. Marryat, Japhet, etc., ch. lvii. He considered me as … a flash pickpocket rusticating until some hue and cry was over.

1839. W. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, p. 138 (ed. 1840). ‘Awake! to be sure I am, my flash cove,’ replied Sheppard.

1865. M. E. Braddon, Henry Dunbar, ch. v. He … took out the little packet of bank-notes. ‘I suppose you can understand these,’ he said. The languid youth … looked dubiously at his customer. ‘I can understand as they might be flash uns,’ he remarked, significantly.

1888. C. D. Warner, Their Pilgrimage, p. 157. The flash riders or horsebreakers, always called ‘broncho busters,’ can perform really marvellous feats.

3. (originally thieves’, now general).—Vulgar, or blackguardly; showy; applied to one aping his betters. Hence (in Australia), vain glorious or swaggering. The idea conveyed is always one of vulgarity or showy blackguardism.

1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford (ed. 1854), p. 21. A person of great notoriety among that portion of the élite which emphatically entitles itself flash.

1861. A. Trollope, Framley Parsonage, ch. ix. If the dear friendship of this flash Member of Parliament did not represent that value, what else did do so?

1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, Pledge 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.’

4. (common).—In a set style. Also used substantively.

1819. Vaux, Flash Dict., p. 173. s.v. A person who affects any peculiar habit, as swearing, dressing in a particular manner, taking snuff, etc., merely to be taken notice of is said to do it out of flash.

1828. The English Spy. vol. I., p. 189. The man upon that half-starved nag Is an Ex S——ff, a strange wag, Half-flash and half a clown.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, I., p. 36. They all of them (coster lads) delight in dressing flash as they call it.… They try to dress like the men, with large pockets in their cord jackets, and plenty of them. Their trousers, too, must fit tight at the knee, and their boots they like as good as possible. A good ‘kingsman,’ a plush skull-cap, and a seam down the trousers are the great points of ambition with the coster boys.

[Hence, in combination, Flash-case, crib, drum, house, ken, or panny (see Flash-ken); flash-cove (q.v.); flash-dispensary (American = a boarding house), especially a swell brothel; flash-gentry (= the swell mob or higher class of thieves); flash-girl, -moll, -mollisher, -piece or -woman (= a showy prostitute); flash-jig (costers’ = a favourite dance); flash-kiddy (= a dandy); flash-lingo, or song (= ‘patter,’ or a song interlarded with cant words and phrases); flash-man (q.v.); flash-note (= a spurious bank-note); flash-rider (American, see broncho-buster); flash toggery (= smart clothes); flash vessel (= a gaudy looking, but undisciplined ship)].

1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, [1890,] p. 58. The rusticity of Jerry was fast wearing off … and he bid fair, etc. … to chaff with the flash mollishers.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 273 Soon then I mounted in Swell St. High, And sported my flashiest toggery.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, I., p. 14. The other dances are jigs—flash jigs—hornpipes in fetters—a dance rendered popular by the success of the noted Jack Sheppard.

Verb (common).—1. To show; to expose.

[Among combinations may be mentioned, to flash one’s ivories = to show one’s teeth, to grin (Grose); to flash the hash = to vomit (Grose); to flash the dickey = to show the shirt front; to flash the dibs = to show or spend one’s money; to flash a fawney = to wear a ring; to flash one’s gab = to talk, to swagger, to brag; to flash the bubs = to expose the paps; to flash the muzzle (q.v.); to flash one’s ticker = to air one’s watch; to flash the drag = to wear women’s clothes for immoral purposes; to flash the white grin = see grin; to flash it (q.v.), or to flash one’s meat (cf., meat-flasher); to flash a bit (q.v.); to flash the flag = to sport an apron; to flash the wedge = to ‘fence’ the swag, etc.]

1812. Vaux, Flash Dict. Don’t flash your sticks, don’t expose your pistols.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 2. His lordship, as usual, that very great dab At the flowers of rhet’ric, is flashing his gab.

1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc. He flashed the blunt, made a show of money to dazzle the spectators.

1825. E. Kent, Modern Flash Dict. Flashing his ivory, shew his teeth.

1834. W. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, (ed. 1864), p. 176.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘The Dead Drummer.’ When trav’lling, don’t flash your notes or your cash Before other people—it’s foolish and rash.

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good-Night. Likewise you molls that flash your bubs, For swells to spot and stand you sam.

1887. W. E. Henley, Straight Tip. Go crying croaks, or flash the drag.

To flash a bit, verbal phr. (venery).—To show up; to permit examination; ‘to spread’ (q.v.); to behave indecently. Said of women only.

To flash it, or to flash one’s meat.—To expose the person. [Hence meat-flasher] (q.v.). Said usually of men.

To flash the muzzle (old).—To produce a pistol.

c. 1823. Ballad (quoted in Don Juan xi.). On the high toby spice flash the muzzle In spite of each gallows old scout.

To flash it about, or to cut a flash or dash, verbal phr. (common).—To make a display; to live conspicuously and extravagantly.

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 220. He flashed it about a good deal for a long time, going from one place to another. Sometimes he was a lord, at others an earl.

To go flashing it, verb. phr. (venery).—To have sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

Flash-Case (or -Crib, -House, -Drum, -Ken, -Panny, etc.).—1. A house frequented by thieves, as a tavern, lodging-house, fence (q.v.).

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flash-ken, c., a house where thieves use, and are connived at.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

1821. D. Haggart, Life, ‘Glossary,’ p. 172. Flash-kain, a house for receiving stolen goods. [Haggart’s spelling, being that of the respectable Edinburgh lawyer who took down his ‘confessions’ is generally misleading and inaccurate.]

1828. Smeeton, Doings in London, p. 39. It is a game in very great vogue among the macers, who congregate nightly at the flash-houses.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 50 (ed. 1854). There is one Peggy Lobkins who keeps a public house, a sort of flash-ken called ‘The Mug’ in Thames Court.

1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (ed. 1840), p. 271. I’ve been to all the flash-cases in town, and can hear nothing of him or his wives.… Ibid, p. 135. ‘The Black Lion!’ echoed Terence, ‘I know the house well; by the same token that it’s a flash-crib.’

2. (common).—A brothel; a haunt of loose women.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum (Flash song quoted under flash-panneys). Next for his favourite mot the kiddey looks about, And if she’s in a flash-panny he swears he’ll have her out; So he fences all his togs to buy her duds, and then He frisks his master’s lob to take her from the bawdy ken.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. (ed. 1840). You know how little I frequent flash-houses.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 380. Those troublesome swells, Who come from the play-houses, flash-kens, and hells.

1840. Macaulay, Essays: ‘Lord Clive.’ The lowest wretches that the company’s crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of London.

1852. Bristed, Upper Ten Thousand, p. 34. That is Mary Black who keeps the greatest flash house in Leonard Street.

Flash-Cove (also Flash-Companion), subs. (common).—A thief; a sharper; a fence (q.v.).

1825. E. Kent, Modern Flash Dict. Flash-cove, the keeper of a place for the reception of stolen goods.

1839. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 60.—‘Awake! To be sure I am, my flash-cove!’ replied Sheppard.

Flash-Man, subs. (old).—Primarily a man talking flash (see quots., 1823 and 1862); hence, a rogue, a thief, the landlord of a flash-case (q.v.). Also a fancy-joseph (for synonyms, see Fancy-man). In America, a person with no visible means of support, but living in style and ‘showing up’ well.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 141. A flashman is one who lives on the hackneyed prostitution of an unfortunate woman of the town.

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, II., 1. Soon one is floored upon the ground. While loud her flashman cries, ‘Arise, my ladybird, arise!’

1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf, etc., p. 80. Derived from his language, and this again has its appellation (’tis suggested) from the first flash-men being highwaymen, that then generally abounded (circa 1770). He is the favorite, or protector of a prostitute, whose flash-man he is; and she is called inversely, his flash-woman.

c. 1833. Broadside Ballad. My flash-man has gone to sea.

1849. New South Wales, Past, Present, and Future, ch. i., p. 14. This man was known to Mr. Day to be what is termed a flash-man; and, seeing his own imminent danger, he instantly spoke to him and called him a cowardly rascal, and offered to give him shot for shot, while he was re-loading.

1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. v. You’re playing a dangerous game, my flashman.

1862. Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, vol. I., pt. 5, ch. i., p. 307. Those articles were sold throughout the country by pedestrian hawkers, most of whom lived in the wild country called the flash, from a hamlet of that name situated between Buxton, Leek, and Macclesfield.… Travelling about from fair to fair, and using a cant or slang dialect, they became generally known as flash-men, and the name still survives (to which may be added: They paid, at first, ready money, but when they had established a credit, paid in promissory notes which were rarely honored.)

a. 1873. Lyra Flagitiosa. [Quoted in Hotten.] My flash man’s in quod, And I’m the gal that’s willin’, So I’ll turn out to-night, And earn an honest shillin’.

Flash of Lightning, subs. phr. (old).—1. A glass of gin; a dram of neat spirit. See Go and Drinks. Latterly, an ‘American drink.’ See quot. 1862.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 164, s.v.

1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry (ed. 1890), p. 79. I have not exactly recovered from the severe effects of the repeated flashes of lightning and strong claps of thunder, with which I had to encounter last night.

1823. Jon Bee, Dict. of the Turf (quoted in). But ere they homeward pik’d it, A flash of lightning was sarv’d round to every one as lik’d it.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, (ed. 1854), p. 141. The thunders of eloquence being hushed, flashes of lightning, or, as the vulgar say, ‘glasses of gin’ gleamed about.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., p. 168. The stimulant of a flash of lightning … for so a dram of neat spirit was then called.

1862. E. MacDermott, Popular Guide to International Exhibition, 1862, p. 185. In the vestibule of each refreshment room there is an American bar, where visitors may indulge in … gum-ticklers, eye-openers, flashes of lightning … and a variety of similar beverages.

2. (nautical). The gold braid on an officer’s cap.

Flash in the Pan, subs. phr. (venery).—Connection without emission. Cf. Dry-Bob (q.v.). Also verbally.

1719. Durfey, Pills, v., 340. Still hawking, still baulking, You flash in the pan.

Flashy, adj., and Flashily, or Flashly, adv. (old: now colloquial). Empty; showy; tawdry; insipid.

1637. Milton, Lycidas, 123. Their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.

1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, Act I., sc. iv. It is oftentimes too late with some of you young, termagant, flashy sinners.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii., 12. A flashy town beau.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary, (5th ed.) Flashy (a), vain, bragging, boasting, foolish, empty; also anything waterish and unsavoury.

1755. The World, No. 149. Whose melodious voices give every syllable (not of a lean and flashy, but of a fat and plump song) its just emphasis.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 13, (ed. 1854). Vy it be … the gemman vot payed you so flashly.

1857. Song in Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 42. Your fogle you must flashly tie.

1863. Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Nile, p. 154. Flashily dressed in coloured cloths and a turban, he sat down in one of our chairs.

1864. Braddon, Henry Dunbar, ch. v. But he evinced no bad taste in the selection of a costume. He chose no gaudy colours, or flashily cut vestments.

1873. Cassell’s Magazine, Jan., p. 246, col. 2. They are rather prone to dress flashily, and wear, when in full fig, no end of jewellery.

1874. Mortimer Collins, Frances, ch. xvii. That wild set of people Captain Heath picked up with—members of Parliament and flashy young women—all driving four horses, I don’t know where.

1882. Century Magazine, xxvi., 295. As stones, they were cheap and flashy.

Flash-Tail, subs. (common).—A prostitute.—See Tail.

1868. Temple Bar, xxiv., p. 538–9. Picking-up Moll … a flashtail? a prostitute who goes about the streets at nights trying to pick up toffs.

Flasher, subs. (old).—A high-flyer; a fop; a pretender to wit. For synonyms, see Dandy. Also (quot. 2), a Bonnet (q.v.).

1779. D’Arblay, Diary, etc. (1876). vol. I., p. 185. They are reckoned the flashers of the place, yet everybody laughs at them for their airs, affectations, and tonish graces and impertinences.

1880. Derbyshire Gatherer, p. 128. Long before this date (circa 1800) the cant name of flasher was applied to the man who sat by the table in the gambling-house to swear how many times he had seen lucky gamesters break the bank.

Flashery, subs. (old).—Inferior, or vulgar, elegance, dash, distinction, display.

Flash-yad, subs. (back-slang).—A day’s enjoyment. For synonyms, see Flare-up.

Flashy Blade or Spark, subs. phr. (old).—A dandy (q.v.); now a cheap and noisy swell, whether male or female; Cf., Flasher.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 104. In youth a nauseous flashy fop, in elder days a bore.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 40. For though all know that flashy spark, etc.

Flat, subs. (colloquial).—1. A greenhorn; noddy; gull. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head; also Sammy-soft.

1762. Goldsmith, Life of Nash, in wks. p. 546 (Globe). Why, if you think me a dab I will get this strange gentleman, or this, pointing to the flat. Done! cries the sailor, but you shall not tell him.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 142. Who are continually looking out for flats, in order to do them upon the broads, that is, cards.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 59. Poor Johnny Raw, what madness could impel, So rum a flat to face so prime a swell.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Misadventures at Margate.’ He’s been upon the mill, And cos he gammons all the flats we calls him Veepin Bill.

1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. II., ch. ix. ‘Did he pay you for her?’ ‘Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutt’s.’ ‘And you took it? My eyes? what a flat.’

1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xiv. I won two hundred of him at the Cocoa-tree. He play, the young flat!

1847. Punch, vol. XIII., p. 148. It mayn’t precisely please the moral flat. You won’t find fault with it, kind friends, for that.

1848. Thackeray, The Book of Snobs, ch. x. When he does play he always contrives to get hold of a good flat.

1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 39. Fawney-droppers gammon the flats and take the yokels in.

1866. Yates, Black Sheep, I., p. 70. The genius which had hitherto been confined to bridging a pack of cards, or ‘securing’ a die, talking over a flat, or winning money of a greenhorn.

1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in My Garden, vol. II., p. 180. Their quack medicines that will cure everything, and their sales of invaluable articles at a loss, and a thousand other devices to catch flats.

1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good-night. You flats and joskins great and small.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Sept. 21, p. 3, col. 1 (In a London Gambling Hell). The flats who play faro (Cross-heading).

2. (American thieves’).—An honest man.

3. (American). A lover’s dismissal; a jilting.

Adj. (colloquial and literary).—Downright; plain; straightforward; as in that’s flat? a flat lie, “flat burglary,” etc.

1598. Shakspeare, 1 King Henry IV., Act I., Sc. 3. Wor.: You start away, And lend no ear to my purposes. Those prisoners you shall keep. Hot.: Nay, I will; that’s flat.

1835–40. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, p. 6, preface (ed. 1862).

1848. Lowell, Fable for Critics, p. 19. (A fetch, I must say, most transparent and flat).

[There are other usages, more or less colloquial: e.g., Insipid; tame; dull: as in Macaulay’s “flat as champagne in decanters.” On the Stock Exchange. flat = without interest: Stock is borrowed flat when no interest is allowed by the lender as security for the due return of the scrip.]

Verb (American). To jilt. Cf., subs., sense 3. For synonyms, see Mitten.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 602. To flat, in the West, means to jilt, and is probably derived from another slang phrase, ‘to feel flat,’ denoting the depression which is apt to follow such a disappointment.

To feel flat, verb. phr. (American).—1. To be low-spirited; out of sorts; off colour (q.v.).

1838. J. C. Neal, Charcoal Sketches. Not to hurt a gentleman’s feelings and to make him feel flat afore the country.

2. (American).—To fail; to give way. Also used substantively.

Flat as a flounder (or Pancake), phr. (colloquial).—Very flat indeed. Also flat as be blowed.

1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 177, col. 1.

To brush up a flat. See Brusher.

To pick up a flat, verb. phr. (prostitutes’). To find a client. Fr., lever or faire un miché (miche = bread, from michon = money. Compare Breadwinner: under Monosyllable (q.v.)).

1869. Greenwood, Seven Curses of London. On the chance that she will, in the course of the evening, pick up a flat.

To have (or do) a bit of flat, verb. phr. (venery).—To indulge in sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.

Flat-back, subs. (common).—A bed-bug. For synonyms, see Norfolk Howard.

Flat-broke, adj. (colloquial).—Utterly ruined; dead-broke (q.v.).

Flat-catcher, subs. (common).—An impostor.

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, i., 6. Cope (speaking of a horse). Well, Master Gull’em, do you think we shall get the flat-catcher off to-day?

1841. Blackwood’s Mag., l., 202. Buttoners are those accomplices of thimble-riggers … whose duty it is to act as flat-catchers or decoys, by personating flats.

1856. Mayhew, Great World of London, p. 46. And flat-catchers, or ‘ring-droppers,’ who cheat by pretending to find valuables in the street.

1864. London Review, June 18, p. 643. ‘The Bobby’ or chinked-back horse, is another favourite flat-catcher.

1869. Whyte-Melville, M. or N., p. 110. Rather a flat-catcher, Tom? said that nobleman, between the whiffs of a cigar.

Flat-catching, subs. (common).—Swindling.

1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 118, The no-pinned hero, on being elevated, gave, as a toast, ‘Success to flat-catching,’ which produced roars of laughter and shouts of approbation.

1869. Greenwood, Seven Curses of London. To mark the many kinds of bait that are used in flat-catching, as the turf slang has it.

Flatch, adj. (back-slang).—A half. flatch-kennurd = half drunk; flatch-yenork = half-a-crown; flatch-yennep = a half-penny (see subs., sense 1).

Subs. 1.—A half-penny. [An abbreviation of flatch-yennep.] For synonyms, see Mag.

c. 1866. Vance, The Chickaleary Cove. I doesn’t care a flatch as long as I’ve a tach.

2. (coiners’).—A counterfeit half-crown. For synonyms, see Madza.

Flat-cap, subs. (old).—A nickname for a citizen of London. [In Henry the Eight’s time flat round caps were the pink of fashion; but when their date was out, they became ridiculous. The citizens continued to wear them long after they were generally disused, and were often satirized for their fidelity].

1596. Ben Jonson, Every Man in H., ch. ii., v. 1. Mock me all over From my flat-cap unto my shining shoes.

1602. Dekker, Honest Whore. Old Plays, iii., 304. Come, Sirrah, you flat-cap, where be those whites?

1605. Marston, Dutch Court, ii., 1. Wealthy flat-caps that pay for their pleasure the best of any men in Europe.

1613. Beaumont and Fletcher, Hon. Man’s Fort., v. 3. Trade? to the city, child: a flat-cap will become thee.

Flat-cock, subs. (old).—A female. [Grose, 1785.] For synonyms, see Petticoat.

Flat-feet, subs. (common).—Specifically the Foot Guards, but also applied to other regiments of the line. Also (generally with some powerful adjective), applied to militia men to differentiate them from linesmen. For synonyms, see Mud-crusher.

Flat-fish, (generally, a regular flat-fish) subs. (common).—A dullard. [A play upon flat = stupid, and Fish = something to hook or catch.] For synonyms, see Buffle, Cabbage-Head, and Sammy-Soft. Cf., Fr., platpied = a contemptible fellow.

Flat-footed, adj. (American).—Downright; resolute; honest. [Western: the simile, common to most languages, is of a man standing, his back to the wall, resolute to accomplish his purpose.]

1858. Harper’s Magazine, Sept. His herculean frame, and bold, flat-footed way of saying things, had impressed his neighbours, and he held the rod in terrorism over them.

1871. Philadelphia Bulletin, Mar. 23. ‘The row at St. Clement’s Church.’ Now the Committee of the vestry put their foot flatly down on auricular confession and priestly absolution.

1887. R. A. Proctor, Knowledge, June 1. When, in America, General Grant said he had put his foot down and meant to advance in that line if it took him all the summer, he conveyed … the American meaning of the expression flat-footed.

Flat-head, subs. (American).—A greenhorn; a sammy-soft (q.v.).

Flat-iron, subs. (common).—A corner public house. [From the triangular shape.]

Flattie or Flatty, subs. (common).—A gull. [A diminutive of flat, sense 1.] Formerly ‘cheap-jacks’ = one in a new ‘pitch.’

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 232. They betray to the flatties (natives) all their profits and proceedings.

Flat-move, subs. (old).—An attempt or project that miscarries; folly and mismanagement generally.—Grose.

Flats, subs. (old). 1. Playing cards. For synonyms, see King’s Books.

1821. Haggart, Life, p. 56. We played at flats in a budging-crib.

2. (old).—False dice. For synonyms, see Fulhams.

3. (old).—Base money.

Mahogany flats, subs. phr. (common).—Bed-bugs. For synonyms, see Norfolk Howards.

Flats and Sharps, subs. phr. (old).—Weapons.

1818. Scott, Heart of Midlothian, ch. xxx. ‘I have known many a pretty lad cut short in his first summer upon the road, because he was something hasty with his flats and sharps.’

Flatten Out, verb. phr. (American).—To get the better of (in argument or fight). For synonyms, see Floor. Flattened-out = ruined; beaten.

Flatter-trap, subs. (common).—The mouth. Fr., la menteuse, but for synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.

Flatty-ken, subs. (thieves’).—See quot.

1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. I., p. 261. Some take up their abode in what they call flatty-kens, that is, houses the landlord of which is not ‘awake’ or ‘fly’ to the ‘moves’ and dodges of the trade.

Flawed, ppl. adj. (common).—1. Half drunk; ‘a little crooked’; quick-tempered.—Grose. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

2. (venery).—‘Cracked in the ring’; i.e., deflowered.

Flay (or flay the fox), verb. phr. (old).—To vomit: ‘from the subject to the effect,’ says Cotgrave; ‘for the flaying of so stinking a beast is like enough to make them spue that feel it.’ Now, to shoot the cat. For synonyms, see Accounts and Cast up Accounts. Cf., Fox, verb, sense 1.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. xi. He would flay the fox.

2. (American).—To clean out by unfair means.

To flay or skin a flint, verb. phr. (old).—To be mean or miserly. See Skinflint.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. He’ll flay or skinn a flint of a Meer Scrat or Miser.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, vol. II., p. 194 (ed. 1846). Report says she would skin a flint if she could.

Flaybottom or Flaybottomist, subs. (common).—A schoolmaster, with a play on the word phlebotomist = a blood-letter.—Grose. Fr., fouette-cul; and (Cotgrave) “Fesse-cul, a pedantical whip-arse.”

Flavour, to catch (or get) the flavour. verb. phr. (common).—1. To be intoxicated. For synonyms, see Drinks and Screwed.

2. (venery). To be ‘half-on’ for coition; to wax proud (q.v.): said of men and women both.

Flax, verb. (American).—To beat severely; to give it hot (q.v.). For synonyms, see Tan.

Flax-wench, subs. (old).—A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1604. Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, i., 2. My wife’s a hobby-horse; deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench.

Flea. To send away with a flea in the ear. verb. phr. (common).—To dismiss with vigour and acerbity.

1854. Notes and Queries, 8 Apl., p. 322, col. 2. The luckless applicant is peremptorily dismissed with an imperative ‘flee!’ … or, facetiously, with a flee in his ear.

To have a flea in the ear = (1) to fail in an enterprise; and (2) to receive a scolding, or annoying suggestion.

To sit on a bag of fleas, verb. phr. (common).—To sit uncomfortably; on a bag of hen fleas = very uncomfortably indeed.

To catch fleas for, verb. phr. (venery).—To be on terms of extreme intimacy: e.g., ‘I catch her fleas for her’ = She has nothing to refuse me. Cf., Shakspeare (Tempest, III., 2.), ‘Yet a tailor might scratch her wheree’er she did itch.’

In a flea’s leap, adv. phr. (old).—In next to no time; instanter (q.v.).

Flea-and-louse, subs. (rhyming slang). A house. For synonyms, see Ken.

Flea-bag, subs. (common).—A bed; Fr. un pucier. For synonyms, see Kip.

1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xl. ‘Troth, and I think the gentleman would be better if he went off to his flea-bag himself.’

Flea-bite, subs. (old).—A trifle.

1630. Taylor, Works. If they doe lose by pirates, tempests, rocks, ’Tis but a fleabite to their wealthy stockes; Whilst the poore cutpurse day and night doth toile, Watches and wardes, and doth himselfe turmoile.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Flea-biting, subs. (old).—A trifle.

1621. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. Their miseries are but flea-bitings to thine.

Flea- (or Flay-) Flint, subs. (old.)—A miser: Cf., Skin flint (q.v.).

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 141. The flea-flints … strip me bare.

Flear, verb. (old).—To grin. A flearing fool = a grinning idiot.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew.

Fleece, subs. (old).—An act of theft. Cf., old proverb, ‘to go out to shear and come home shorn.’ For synonyms, see Skin.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fleece, to Rob, Plunder, or strip.

1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Duel, ii., 2. Had a fleece at his purse.

2. (venery).—The female pubic hair. Fr. toison (Baudelaire); It., barbiglioni (Florio). For foreign synonyms, see Mott.

English Synonyms.—Banner (Durfey); bandoliers (old); beard; bearskin; belly-bristles; belly-thicket; belly-whiskers; Boskage of Venus; broom; brush; bush; cat-skin; clover-field; cunny-skin (Durfey); Cupid’s Arbour; cunt-curtain; damber-, dilberry-, gooseberry-, furze-, quim-, or whin-bush; down; Downshire; front-doormat; feather (Prior and Moore); fluff; forest (Donne); fud (Burns); fur; fur-below (old catch); ‘grove of eglantine’ (Carew); hedge on the dyke; lower-wig (Burton); moss; mott-carpet; mustard-and-cress; nether eye-brow (or -lashes); nether-whiskers; parsley (Durfey); plush; quim-whiskers; quim-wig; scut (Shakspeare); shaving-brush (cf., Lather); scrubbing-brush; shrubbery; sporran; stubble (see Pointer); sweet-briar; thatch; tail-feathers; ‘toupee’; ‘tufted honours’; twat-rug.

Verb (now recognised).—To cheat; to shear or be shorn (as a sheep).

1593. Nashe, Christ’s Teares, in wks. (Grosart) IV. 140. Tell me (almost) what gentleman hath been cast away at sea, or disasterly souldiourizd it by lande, but they (usurers) have enforst him thereunto by their fleecing.

1598. Shakspeare, I King Henry IV., ii., 2. Down with them: fleece them!

1620. Dekker, His Dreame, in wks. (Grosart) III. 52. Catchpolles, and varlets, who did poore men fleece (To their undoing) for a twelve-peny peece.

1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, pt. IV., ch. ii. When a poor man has almost undone himself for thy sake, thou art for fleecing him.

1822. Scott, Fort. of Nigel, ch. xxiii. He is now squeezed and fleeced by them on every pretence.

1836. M. Scott, Cruise of the Midge, p. 106. He was stabbed by the Ragamuffin he had fleeced.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xxxi. Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the Continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them.

1859. Times, 25 Oct. ‘Review of Dean Ramsay’s Reminiscences.’ I don’t know whether they are black or white sheep, but I know that if they are long there they are pretty certain to be fleeced.

1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 16 Jan. How you would be fleeced! You’ve got a lot to learn yet.

Hence fleeced = ruined; dead-broke (q.v. for synonyms).

Fleecer, subs. (old).—A thief.

1600–69. Prynne, Breviate. Not fleecers, but feeders.

Fleece-Hunter, or -Monger, subs. phr. (venery).—A whore-master. For synonyms, see Molrower.

Fleeter-Face, subs. (old).—A pale-face; a coward. Cf., Shakspeare’s ‘cream-faced loon.’

1647. Beaumont and Fletcher, Queen of Corinth. You know where you are, you fleeter-face.

Fleet-Note, subs. (old).—A forged note.

1821. Real Life in London.

Fleet of the Desert, subs. phr. (common).—A caravan; cf., ship of the desert = camel.

Fleet-Street, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The estate of journalism, especially journalism of the baser sort.

Fleet-Streeter, subs. (colloquial).—A journalist of the baser sort; a spunging prophet (q.v.); a sharking dramatic critic; a spicy (q.v.) paragraphist; and so on.

Fleet-Streetese, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The so-called English, written to sell by the Fleet-Streeter (q.v.), or baser sort of journalist: a mixture of sesquipedalians and slang, of phrases worn threadbare and phrases sprung from the kennel; of bad grammar and worse manners; the like of which is impossible outside Fleet-Street (q.v.), but which in Fleet-Street commands a price, and enables not a few to live.

Fleg, verb. (old).—To whip. Bailey.

Flemish Account, subs. phr. (old).—A remittance less than was expected; hence, an unsatisfactory account. [Among the Flemings (the merchants of Western Europe when commerce was young) accounts were kept in livres, sols, and pence; but the livre or pound only = 12s., so that what the Antwerp merchant called one livre thirteen and fourpence would in English currency be only 20s.]

1668. T. Brown, The Accurate Accomptant, etc. Quoted in N. and Q. 1. S. I., 286. London, August 10th, 1668. To Roger Pace, Factor, etc., for 10 pieces cont. 746 Ells Fl. at 10s. Flem. per Ell is £373 Flem. Exchange at 35s. makes Sterling Money £213 2s. 10d.

1774–1826. Typ. Antiq., p. 1773. A person resident in London is said to have had most of Caxton’s publications. He sent them to Amsterdam for inspection, and on writing for them was informed that they had been destroyed by accident. ‘I am very much afraid,’ says Herbert, ‘my kind friend received but a Flemish account of his Caxton’s.’

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tong. Flemish account, a losing or bad account.

Flesh, subs. (old).—Generic for the organs of generation, male or female. Also (of women) Fleshly-part.

1604. Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, iv., 3. She would not exchange flesh with one that loved her.

1605. Cymbeline, i., 5. If you buy ladies’ flesh at a million a dram you cannot preserve it from tainting.

1620. Percy, Folio MSS. [Hales & Furnivall, 1867]. ‘As I was ridinge by the way.’ Sweet hart, shall I put my flesh in thine?

Flesh, verb., or, Flesh It; or, to be fleshed in (venery).—To have carnal knowledge of—to be ‘one flesh with’—a woman. [For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.] An equivalent in the passive sense is to feel his flesh in one’s body (said by women only).

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Andar in Carnafau. To go a fleshing or a wenching: (Carnafau = the brat-getting place; the hole of content).

Flesh and Blood, subs. phr. (common).—Brandy and port in equal proportions. See Drinks.

Flesh-bag, subs. (common).—A shirt or chemise.

English Synonyms.—Biled rag (American); camesa; carrion-case; commission; dickey (formerly a worn-out shirt); gad (gipsy); lully; mill tog; mish; narp (Scots’); shaker; shimmy (= a chemise, Marryat); smish.

French Synonyms.—Une liquette or limace (thieves’: from the Gypsy. The form also occurs also in the Italian lima); un panais (popular).

German Synonyms.—Kamis, Kamsel, Kemsel, or Gemsel (from med. Lat., Camisiale; Fr. camisole); Kesones, Kusones, or Ksones (also = cotton and underclothing); Staude or Stauden; Hanfstandt (Liber Vagatorum: literally hempshrub).

Italian Synonym.—Lima (see Fr., limace).

1820. London Magazine; i., 29. They are often without a flesh-bag to their backs.

Flesh-broker, subs. (old).—1. A match-maker.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flesh-broker, a match-maker; also a bawd; between whom but little difference, for they both (usually) take money.

2. A procuress [Grose]. Cf., Flesh-fly, Flesh-monger, and Flesh-market. For synonyms, see Mother.

Flesh-fly (also, Flesh-maggot), subs. (old).—A whoremaster. For synonyms, see Molrower.

1781. Cowper, Progress of Error, 323–324. Oh! that a verse had power, and could command far, Far away, these flesh-flies of the land.

Flesh-market, or Flesh-shambles, subs. (common).—A brothel or flash-house (q.v.); also the pavement, in Piccadilly or Regent-street, for instance, where whores do congregate. Cf., Meatmarket.

1608. John Day, Humour out of Breath, II. I Asp. … She may bee well discended; if shee be, Shee’s fit for love, and why not then for me. Boy. And you be not fitted in Venice ’tis straunge, for ’tis counted the best flesh-shambles in Italie.

Flesh-monger, subs. (old).—A procurer; a whore-master. [From Eng. Flesh + monger]. For synonyms, see Mother and Molrower. Cf., Flesh-fly, Flesh-market, and Flesh-broker.

1603. Shakspeare, Measure for Measure, V., 1. And was the duke a flesh-monger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?

Fleshmongering. To go flesh-mongering, verb. phr. (venery).—To quest for women; to go on the prowl (q.v.)., or after meat. See Greens and Ride.

Flesh-pot. Sighing for the flesh-pots of Egypt. phr. (common).—Hankering for good things no longer at command. [Biblical].

1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 131. Do you think it is a hankering after the flesh-pots, and that the canon’s cook reconciles me to the canon’s opinions?

Flesh-tailor, subs. (old).—A surgeon. For synonyms, see Sawbones.

1633. Ford, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, iii. Oh, help! help! help! Oh, for a flesh-tailor quickly.

Fleshy, subs. (Winchester College).—See Cat’s Head.

Fletch, subs. (prison). A spurious coin. Cf., Flatch.

Flick, or Flig, subs. (colloquial).—1. A cut with a whip-lash; hence, a blow of any sort. A flicking is often administered by schoolboys with a damp towel or pocket-handkerchief. For synonyms, see tanning.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VI., ch. ii. ‘I do know you are a woman,’ cries the squire, ‘and it’s well for thee, that art one; if had’st been a man, I promise thee I had lent thee a flick long ago.’

1787. Grose, Provincial Glossary, s.v. vlick.

2. (common).—A jocular salutation; usually old flick. Cf., Codger and My Tulip.

1883. Punch, 28 July, p. 38, col. 1. Well, last night, They’d a feet in these gardens, old flick, as was something too awfully quite.

Verb. (thieves’).—1. To cut.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flicking, c., to cut, cutting.

1728. Bailey, Eng. Dict. (flick is given as a ‘country word’).

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Flick me some pannam and cassan, cut me some bread and cheese; flick the peter, cut off the cloak bag or portmanteau.

1791. Carew, Life and Adventures, q.v.

1837. Disraeli, Venetia, ch. xiv. Flick the bread, cut the bread.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, or Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v. Flick the Peter and rake the swag for I want to pad my beaters.

2. (colloquial).—To strike with, or as with, a whip.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xliii. Near him, leaning listlessly against the wall, stood a strong-built countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting whip the top-boot that adorned his right foot.

1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xxvii. Who … receives this compliment by flicking Mr. George in the face with a head of greens.

1854. Our Cruise in the Undine, p. 103. It appeared to us that one of the most frequent, and therefore we supposed the principal stroke aimed at (in a Heidelberg duel), was to strike your sword low down, perhaps four inches from the handle, upon your adversary’s bandaged arm, so that the end of the weapon (the only part that is sharpened) should Flick itself against your opponent’s face.

1863. Hon. Mrs. Norton, Lost and Saved, p. 29. Drivers shouting, swearing, and flicking at the horses.

Flicker, subs. (Old Cant).—A drinking glass.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flicker, c., a drinking-glass; Flicker snapt, c., the glass is broken; Nim the flicker, c., steal the glass; Rum flicker, c., a large glass or rummer; Queer flicker, c., a green or ordinary glass.

French Synonyms.—Une lampe (masons’); un guindal (popular); un godet (very old); une gobette (thieves’); un gobeson (thieves’).

Verb. 1. To drink.—Matsell.

2. (old).—To laugh wantonly; also to kiss, or lewdly fondle a woman.—Palsgrave. For synonyms, see Firkytoodle.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v. Flicker, to grin or flout.

Also Flicking = (1) drinking, and (2) wanton laughter.

Let her flicker, phr. (American).—Said of any doubtful issue: ‘let the matter take its chance.’

Flicket-a-Flacket, adv. (old).—Onomatopoetic for a noise of flapping and flicking.

1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., ii., 20. Their bellies went flicket-a-flacket.

Flier or Flyer, subs. (racing and yachting).—1. A horse or boat of great speed; also (American railway) a fast train; hence, by implication, anything of excellence. Cf., Dasher, Daisy, etc. Also adj., = keen for.

1865. Braddon, Henry Dunbar, ch. xxii. The mare’s in splendid condition; well, you saw her take her trial gallop the other morning, and you must know she’s a flier, so I won’t talk about her.

1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 156. Atalanta might be a flyer, but an artist like Pycroft, with a clever colt like Newsmonger under him, was quite likely to outride whatever boy Mr. Pipes might now be able to pick up.

1888. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 2 Mar. In spite of the strike passenger trains, what are known as the flyers, are running with reasonable regularity.

1890. Bird o’ Freedom, 19 Mar., p. 1, col. 1. Clearly the G.O.M. is no flier over this course.

1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 20 Mar. Although he may doubtless be made a good deal better he may turn out to be no flier.

1891. Bury and Hillier, Cycling, p. 6. A moderate rider, not being an athlete or a flier … can … get over in an hour seven or eight miles of ground on a tricycle.

1891. Anti-Jacobin, 23 May, p. 400. When Dangerous, Plenipotentiary, Bay Middleton, and other flyers ran.

1891. Morning Advertiser, 28 Mar. In any event, he was never a flyer at breakfast. But late at night, and when, perhaps, he tumbled across something equivalent to woodcock, tripe and onions, or a hot lobster, say, why then, take my word for it, he made up for previous abstinence.

1891. National Observer, 1 Aug. It remains to be seen whether large yachts constructed on the same principle will be equally invincible: that is, if the flyers we have are one and all to disappear.

2. (football).—A shot in the air. See Made-flyer.

3. (American).—A small hand-bill; a Dodger (q.v.).

To take a flier (American trade).—1. To make a venture; to invest against odds.

2. (venery).—To copulate in haste (Grose); to do a Fast-fuck (q.v.).

Flies, subs. (rhyming).—Lies. Hence, nonsense; trickery; deceit.

There are no flies on me, on him, etc., phr. (common).—‘I am dealing honestly with you;’ ‘he is genuine, and is not humbugging.’ In America, the expression is used of (1) a man of quick parts, a man who ‘knows a thing without its being kicked into him by a mule’; and (2) a person of superior breeding or descent. Sometimes the phrase is corrupted into ‘no fleas.’ See Gammon.

1868. Diprose, St. Clement Danes, Past and Present. To Deaf Burke, the celebrated pugilist, is attributed the old story of the ‘flies and the gin and water;’ and hence the term ‘no flies’ became prevalent. Burke had ordered … some ‘hot and strong and a dash of lemon.’ The goblet was brought … Burke raised … the nectar to his lips, and beheld some dissipated flies lying at the bottom of the tumbler; he placed the glass on the table, and deliberately removed the flies with the spoon, five or six in number, and laid them side by side before him, and then giving a hearty pull at the gin and water, he as deliberately replaced the flies … and passed it to his friend. His companion stared angrily. ‘Do you dare to insult me, and in the presence of company?’ said the irate vis-à-vis. ‘Pardon me,’ replied Burke, quietly handing the glass a second time, ‘though I don’t drink flies myself, I didn’t know but what others might.’

1888. Detroit Free Press, 25 Aug. There ain’t no flies on him, signifies, that he is not quiet long enough for moss to grow on his heels, that he is wide awake.

1888. Missouri Republican, 24 Feb. People who are capable of descending to New York and Boston English are fully justified in saying that there are no flies on St. Louis or the St. Louis delegation either.

Fligger (also Flicker), verb. (old).—To grin.

1720. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 267. He fliggered, and told me for all my brave alls He would have a stroke.

Flim.—See Flimsy.

Flim-flam, subs. (old).—An idle story; a sham; a Robin Hood tale (q.v.). A duplication of Flam (q.v.).

1589. Pappe with an Hatchet (ed. 1844) p. 39. Trusse up thy packet of flim-flams, and roage to some countrey faire, or read it among boyes in the belfrie.

1630. Taylor, Workes. They with a courtly tricke, or a flim-flam, do nod at me, whilst I the noddy am.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XVIII., ch. xii. I thought thou had’st been a lad of higher mettle than to give way to a parcel of maidenish tricks. I tell thee ’tis all flim-flam.

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle’s Stratagem, iii., 1. Mr. Curate, don’t think to come over me with your flim-flams, for a better man than ever trod in your shoes is coming over-sea to marry me.

1805. Isaac Disraeli, Flim-flams; or the Life and Errors of my Uncle, and the Amours of my Aunt [title].

1825. C. Lamb, Munden (in London Magazine) Feb. I wonder you can put such flim-flams upon us, sir.

Adj. (old).—Idle; worthless.

1589. Nashe, Month’s Minde, in wks. Vol. I., p. 174. But to leaue thy flim-flam tales and loytering lies.

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes. Filastroccola, flim-flam tales, old wiues tales as they tell when they spinne, a tale without rime or reason, or head or foote.

1633. T. Newton, Lennie’s Touch-stone of Complexions, p. 120. Reporting a flim-flam tale of Robin Hood.

1750. Ozell’s Rabelais, vol. V., p. 247. Glibly swallow down every flim-flam story that’s told them.

1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. X., ch. xix. I wish you’d mind the child—it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that flim-flam book, which cost me one pound one.

Flimp, verb. (thieves’)—1. To hustle or rob. To put on the flimp = to rob on the highway. For synonyms, see Crack and Prig.

1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, p. 111. To take a man’s watch is to flimp him, it can only be done in a crowd, one gets behind and pushes him in the back, while the other in front is robbing him.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 445, s.v.

2. (venery).—To copulate. For synonyms, see Ride.

Flimping, subs. (thieves’).—Stealing from the person.

1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 38. He told me as Bill had flimped a yack.

1862. Cornhill Mag., vol. vi., p. 651. We are going a-flimping, buzzing, cracking, etc.

1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. lx. Flimping is a style of theft which I have never practised, and, consequently of which I know nothing.

Flimsy, or Flim, subs. (common).—1. A bank-note. [From the thinness of the paper.] Soft-flimsy = a note drawn on ‘The Bank of Elegance,’ or ‘The Bank of Engraving.’ For synonyms, see Soft.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.

1818. P. Egan, Boxiana, iv., 443. Martin produced some flimsies and said he would fight on Tuesday next.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (‘Merchant of Venice’). Not ‘kites,’ manufactured to cheat and inveigle, But the right sort of ‘flimsy,’ all sign’d, by Monteagle.

1855. Punch, XXIX., 10. ‘Will you take it in flimsies, or will you have it all in tin?’

1870. Chambers’ Journal, 9 July, p. 448. ‘What would it be worth?’ ‘A flim, Sam.’

1884. Daily Telegraph, 8 Apl., col. 3. One of the slang terms for a spurious bank-note is a soft-flimsy.

1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 149. Next morning when I went to the bank to collect the swag, they stopped the flimsy, and had me arrested before I could look round.

2. (journalists’).—News of all kinds; points (q.v.). [From the thin prepared paper used by pressmen for making several copies at once]. First used at Lloyd’s.

1861. Cornhill Magazine, iv., 199 ‘At Westminster,’ my lord is neither a mumbling nor a short-tempered judge; he will … read them a great deal of his notes, which are a thousand-fold clearer, fuller, and more accurate than the reporter’s flimsy.

1865. Morning Star (‘The Flaneur’). A London correspondent, who, by the aid of flimsy misleads a vast number of provincial papers.

1870. London Figaro, 23 Sept. ‘Special Lining.’ We do not think it is altogether worthy of the high repute of the Pall Mall Gazette to publish flimsy as a special correspondence.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. The sharpest of the reporters had his flimsy up in a minute, and took notes of the proceedings.

Flinders, subs. (common).—Pieces infinitesimally small.

1870. New York Evening Sun, 24 May. Report of Speech of Mr. Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any further procrastination.

Fling, subs. (colloquial).—1. A fit of temper.

2. (common).—A jeer; a jibe; a personal allusion or attack.

1592. Shakspeare, I Henry VI., iii., 1. Then would I have a fling at Winchester.

1888. Star, 10 Oct. Those writers who had a fling at Iddesleigh after his poor running at Stockton will have to take their words back some day.

1890. Pall Mall Gazette, 24 July, p. 4. col. 2. As the disputants warmed up, little personal flings were of course introduced.

Verb (old).—1. To cheat; to get the best of; to do (q.v.) or diddle.—Grose.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xxi. Flung the governor out of a guinea.

2. (Scots).—To dance.

1790. Burns, Tam O’ Shanter. To tell how Maggie lapt and flang (A souple jaud she was, and strang).

3. (venery).—To move in the act; to back-up (q.v.). Fr., ‘frizer la queue = to wriggle the tayle (in leachering).’—Cotgrave.

1539. David Lyndsay, Three Estaitis, Works (Ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1879). I traist sche sal find you flinging your fill.

To Fling Out, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To depart in a hurry, and, especially, in a temper.

To fling (or flap) it in one’s face, verb. phr. (prostitutes’).—To expose the person.

In a fling, adv. phr. (colloquial).—In a spasm of temper.

To have one’s fling, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To enjoy full liberty of action or conduct. Cf., High Old Time.

1624. Beaumont and Fletcher, Rule a Wife, &c., iii., 5. I’ll have a fling.

1846–8. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xiii. Hang it; the regiment’s just back from the West Indies, I must have a little fling, and then when I’m married I’ll reform.

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II., 118. I don’t want to marry until I have had my fling, you know.

1880. Gilbert, Pirates of Penzance. Peers will be peers, And youth will have his fling.

1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 253. If policy (police) show up, then you let me have my fling, eh?

To fling dirt.—See dirt.

Flinger, subs. (Scots).—A dancer.

1821. Scott, Pirate, ch. ix. That’s as muckle as to say, that I suld hae minded you was a flinger and a fiddler yoursel’, Maister Mordaunt.

Fling-Dust, subs. (old).—A street-walker. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

Flint, subs. (workmen’s). A man working for a ‘Union’ or ‘fair’ house; non-Unionists are dung (q.v.). Both terms occur in Foote’s burlesque, The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather, and they received a fresh lease of popularity during the tailors’ strike of 1832. See quots. Cf., Scab Soc, Snob, Snob-stick, and Knobstick.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, flints, journeyman taylors who, on a late occasion, refused to work for the wages settled by law. Those who submitted were by the mutineers stiled dungs, i.e., dunghills.

1832. P. Egan, Book of Sports, p. 34. Jack Reeve is without a rival; the throne of the flints is decidedly freehold property to him.

1834. Noctes Amb., xxxiv., vol. IV., p. 83. (The company is discussing the tailors’ strike). Tickler. The flints flash fire, and the day of the dungs is gone.

Old flint, subs. phr. (common). A miser: one who would ‘skin a flint,’ i.e., stoop to any meanness for a trifle.

1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. vii., p. 34. It’s equally plain that the money which the old flint—rot him—first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers.

To fix one’s flint. See Fix.

To flint in, verb. phr. (American). To act with energy; not to stand on ceremony; to pitch into; to tackle. A verb of action well-nigh as common as fix (q.v.).

Flip, subs. (common).—1. Hot beer, brandy, and sugar; also, says Grose, called Sir Cloudesley after Sir Cloudesley Shovel. See Drinks.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. flip, Sea Drink, of small beer (chiefly) and brandy, sweetened and spiced upon occasion.

1690. Ward, London Spy, part II., p. 41. After the drinking a Kan of Phlip or a Bowl of Punch.

1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. 4, p. 8. So have I seen on board of ship, Some knawing beeff, some spewing flip.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxiv. He … sent for a can of beer, of which he made excellent flip to crown the banquet.

1810. Crabbe, The Borough, Letter 16. Nay, with the seamen working in the ship, At their request, he’d share the grog and flip.

1875. C. D. Warner, Backlog Studies, p. 18. It was thought best to heat the poker red-hot before plunging it into the mugs of flip.

2. (popular).—A bribe or douceur.

3. (common).—A light blow, or snatch.

1821. Haggart, Life, p. 23. Barney made a very unceremonious flip at the bit.

Verb (thieves’).—To shoot.

1819. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v.

1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood (ed. 1864), p. 273. Flip him, Dick; fire, or I’m taken.

To flip up, verb. phr. (American).—To spin a coin.

1879. New York Tribune, 4 Oct. The two great men could flip up to see which should have the second place.

Flip-Flap, subs. 1 (old).—A flighty creature.

1702. Vanbrugh, False Friend. 1. The light airy flip-flap, she kills him with her motions.

2. (popular). A step-dance; a cellar-flap (q.v.). Also (acrobats’); a kind of somersault, in which the performer throws himself over on his hands and feet alternately.

1727. Gay, Fables, ‘Two Monkies.’ The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round. With sommersets he shakes the ground.

1872. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. xiv. There ain’t nothing you can’t do, Morty, from Shylock to a flip-flap.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 Nov., p. 6, col. 2. There were the clowns who danced, turned somersaults, flip-flaps, and contorted themselves.

3. (American). A kind of tea-cake.

1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. The first evening I took tea with Mrs. Scrimmager. ‘It must be more than a mite lonely for you,’ she said, as we sat over her dough-nuts and flip-flaps.

4. (nautical). The arm. For synonyms, see Bender.

5. (venery). The penis.

1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I., 20. I might have cleft her water-gap And joined it close with my flip-flap.

Flipper, subs. (nautical and common). 1. The hand. Tip us your flipper = give me your hand. [From the flipper or paddle of a turtle.] For synonyms, see Daddle and Mauley.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘Lay of St. Gengulphus.’ With those great sugar-nippers they nipp’d off his flippers, As the clerk, very flippantly, termed his fists.

1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Old Bluebottle tipped me his flipper, and ’oped I’d ‘refreshed,’ and all that.

2. (common). See Flapper.

3. (theatrical). Part of a scene, hinged and painted on both sides, used in trick changes.

Flirtatious, adj. (American).—Flighty.

1881, W. D. Howells, D. Breen’s Practice, ch. i., “Oh, you needn’t look after her, Mr. Libby! There’s nothing flirtatious about Grace,” said Mrs. Maynard.

Flirt-gill, Flirtgillian, or Gill-flirt, subs. (old). A wanton; a chopping girl (q.v.); specifically a strumpet. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, ii., 4. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills.

1713. Guardian, No. 26. We are invested with a parcel of flirt-gills, who are not capable of being mothers of brave men.

1729. Gay, Polly, ii. 4. While a man is grappling with these gill-flirts, pardon the expression, Captain, he runs his reason aground.

1822. Scott, Fort. of Nigel, ch. v. She is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.

Flirtina Cop-all, subs. phr. (common). A wanton, young or old; a men’s woman (q.v.).

Float, subs. (theatrical).—The footlights: before the invention of gas they were oil-pans with floating wicks. Cf., Ark-floater.

1886. Saturday Review, 24 July, p. 108. To an actor the float is not what it is to a fisherman.

1889. Answers, 8 June, p. 24. He slapped me on the back, put me in a hansom, and cried, ‘We’ll have you behind the float (footlights) in a week.’

If that’s the way the stick floats. See Stick.

Floater, subs. (Stock Exchange).—An Exchequer bill; applied also to other unfunded stock.

1871. Temple Bar, XXXI., 320. On the Stock Exchange, where slang abounds, floaters is a term which would puzzle outsiders. Floaters are Exchequer bills and their unfunded stock.

2. (common).—A suet dumpling in soup.

3. (political).—A vendible voter.

1883. Graphic, 17 Mar., p. 279, col. 3. ‘How many voters are there?’ asked a candidate in one of these pure-blooded Yankee townships. ‘Four hundred.’ ‘And how many floaters, i.e., purchasable?’ ‘Four hundred.’

1888. New York Herald, 4 Nov. The Building Materials Exchange people were in line to the number of about 200, with a band, and were followed by a sixteen-horse stage of the ‘Long Tom’ shape containing a lot of floaters and some fifers and drummers.

4. (Western American).—A candidate representing several counties, and therefore not considered directly responsible to any one of them.

1853. Texas State Gazette, 16 July. J. W. Lawrence, Esq., requests us to withdraw his name as a candidate for floater in the district composed of the counties of Fayette, Bastrop, and Travis.

5. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.

Floating Academy, subs. phr. (old).—The hulks; also Campbell’s academy (q.v.), and floating hell (q.v.). For synonyms, see Cage.

Floating Batteries, subs. phr. (military).—1. Broken bread in tea; also slingers (q.v.).

2. (American).—The Confederate bread rations during the Secession.

Floating Coffin, subs. phr. (nautical).—A rotten ship.

Floating Hell, or Hell Afloat, subs. phr. (nautical).—A ship commanded by (1) a brutal savage, or (2) a ruthless disciplinarian. See also Floating Academy.

Flock, subs. (colloquial).—A clergyman’s congregation. Also any body of people with a common haunt or interest: e.g., a family of children, a company of soldiers, a school of girls or boys, ‘a cabful of molls,’ and such like.

To fire into the wrong flock, verb. phr. (American pioneers’).—To blunder. A variant is to bark up the wrong tree.

1858. New York Herald, 9 Nov. When Mr. Saulsbury rose and called the Speaker’s attention to the alleged blunder in the Secretary’s report, his own friends jumped up in great excitement and pulled him down; he soon found out that he had fired into the wrong flock.

Flock of Sheep, subs. phr.—1. (gaming). A hand at dominoes set out on the table.

2. (colloquial).—White waves on the sea: White horses (q.v.).

Flog, subs. (American thieves’).—1. A whip. A contraction of Flogger (q.v.). To flog (now recognised), is cited by B. E. (1690), Grose, and the author of Bacchus and Venus as Cant.

To be flogged at the tumbler, verb. phr. (old).—To be whipped at the cart’s tail. See Tumbler.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew.

To flog the dead horse, verb. phr. (common).—1. To work up an interest in a bygone subject; to try against heart; to do with no will nor liking for the job. [Bright said that Earl Russell’s Reform Bill was a dead horse (q.v.), and every attempt to create enthusiasm in its favour was flogging the dead horse.]

2. (nautical).—To work off an advance of wages.

To flog a willing horse, verb. phr. (common).—To urge on one who is already putting forth his best energies.

Flogger, subs. (old).—1. A whip; cf., Flog. Grose gives the word as Cant. Fr., un bouis.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 173, s.v.

2. (theatrical).—A mop (i.e., a bunch of slips of cloth on a handle) used in the painting room to whisk the charcoal dust from a sketch.

Flogging, ppl. adj. (old).—Careful; penurious.

Flogging-cove, subs. phr. (prison)—1. An official who administers the cat (q.v.).

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flogging cove, c. the Beadle, or Whipper in Bridewell, or any such place.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Flogging-cove, the beadle, or whipper, in Bridewell.

2. See Flogging Cully.

Flogging Cully, subs. phr. (venery).—A man addicted, whether from necessity or choice, to flagellation; a whipster (q.v.).

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flogging, c. a Naked Woman’s whipping (with rods) an Old (usually) and (sometimes) a young Lecher.

Flogging Stake, subs. phr. (old).—A whipping post.

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, s.v.

1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

Flogster, subs. (old).—One addicted to flogging. Specifically (naval), a nickname applied to the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV).

Floor, verb. (colloquial).—1. To knock down. Hence to vanquish in argument; to make an end of; to defeat; to confound. See Floored and Dead-beat.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Floor the pig, knock down the officer.

1821. Haggart, Life, p. 15. That moment the farmer let fly at the drover, which floored him.

1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. xxi. ‘When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I kept clear.’

1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, p. 10. Then (apostrophising ‘Maga’) floor me not. Ibid., p. 60, The Corinthian, being no novice in these matters, floored two or three in a twinkling.

1835. Coleridge, Table Talk (published posthumously). The other day I was what you may called floored by a Jew.

1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, p. 425 (Ed. 1857). Even Mr. Bob Sawyer … was floored.

1862. Mrs. H. Wood, The Channings, ch. v. ‘So if the master is directing his suspicions to the seniors, he’ll get floored.’

1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, Pt. V., p. 196. ‘Whenever the mammas object to asking her on account of that horrid Lady Wylde,’ I floor all opposition by saying, ‘Oh, Lady Jane Helter will bring her.’

1888. Sportsman, 28 Nov. Pope, who was the fresher, started at a terrific pace and drove his man all over the ring, ending by flooring him.

To floor the odds (betting men’s).—Said of a low-priced horse that pulls off the event in face of the betting.

1882. Daily Telegraph, 16 Nov. The odds were, nevertheless, floored from an unexpected quarter.

1889. Echo, 24 Jan. As the odds betted on Miss Jessie II. were easily floored by Marsden.

2. (drunkards’).—To finish; to get outside of. E.g., ‘I floored three half-pints and a nip before breakfast.’

1837. Punch, 31 Jan. Dear Bill, this stone jug.… Is still the same snug, Free-and-easy old hole, Where Macheath met his blowens, and Wylde floored his bowl.

18(?). Macmillan’s Magazine (quoted in Century Dict.). I have a few bottles of old wine left: we may as well floor them.

3. (university).—To pluck; to plough (q.v.).

To floor a paper, lesson, examination, examiner, etc., verb. phr. (university).—To answer every question; to master; to prove oneself superior to the occasion.

1852. Bristed, Five Years in an English University, p. 12. Somehow I nearly floored the paper.

1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford. I’ve floored my Little Go.

To floor one’s licks, verb. phr. (common).—To surpass one’s self; to cut-around (q.v.).

1844. Puck, p. 14. Now slowly rising, raised his pewter and floored his licks.

To have, hold, or take the floor, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To rise to address a public meeting; in Ireland, to stand up to dance; and, in America, ‘to be in possession of the House.’

1882. McCabe, New York, xxi., p. 342. A member making a bid below or an offer above the one which has the floor.

1888. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. After a half hour’s recess Mr. Glover took the floor.

1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 11 Nov., p. 6, col. 1. The Duke of Rutland, however, who ‘took the floor’ non-politically at the end of the evening, was really ‘felicitous’ in his few remarks.

Floored, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—1. Vanquished; brought under; ruined. For synonyms, see Dead-beat and infra.

English Synonyms.—Basketted; bitched; bitched-up; bowled out; broken up; buggered up; busted; caved in; choked-off; cornered; cooked; coopered up; dead-beat; done brown; done for; done on toast; doubled up; flattened-out; fluffed; flummoxed; frummagemmed; gapped; gone through St. Peter’s needle; gone under; gravelled; gruelled; hoofed out; in the last of pea-time, or last run of shad; jacked-up; knocked out of time; knocked silly; looed; mucked-out; petered out; pocketed; potted; put in his little bed; queered in his pitch; rantanned; sat upon; sewn up; shut-up; smashed to smithereens; snashed; snuffed out; spread-eagled; struck of a heap; stumped; tied up; timbered; treed; trumped; up a tree.

French Synonyms.—Mon linge est lavé (pop.: = I have thrown up the sponge); coller sous bande (= to put in a hole: at billiards, bande = cushion); avoir son affaire (pop: = to have got a ‘settler’); aplatir (fam: = to flatten out); aplomber (thieves’: = to brazen down; to bluff); être pris dans la balancine (pop.: = to be in a fix); se faire coller (familiar); envoyer quelqu’un s’asseoir, or s’asseoir sur quelqu’un (popular).

Italian Synonym.—Traboccare (= to overturn).

Spanish Synonyms.—Pesado (doubled-up: from peso = weight); aculado (from acular = to corner); arrollar (= to sweep away, as a torrent); aturrullar (= to shut up); cogite! (= ‘I’ve got you.’ or, ‘there I have you!’)

2. (common).—Drunk; in Shakspearean ‘put down’: as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, ‘Never in your life, I think, unless you see Canary put me down.’ (Twelfth Night, i., 3). For synonyms, see Screwed.

3. (painters’).—Hung low at an exhibition; in contradistinction to skyed (q.v.), and on the line (q.v.).

Floorer, subs. (common).—1. An auctioneer (q.v.); or knock-down blow; cf., Dig, Bang, and Wipe. Hence, sudden or unpleasant news; a decisive argument; an unanswerable retort; a decisive check. Sp., peso.

1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 20. For in these fancy times, ’tis your hits in the muns, And your choppers and floorers that govern the funds.

1839. Swinton, Trial of Wm. Humphreys, p. 297. It is a downright floorer to the Grown.

1856. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green. The Putney Pet stared.… The inquiry for his college was, in the language of his profession, a ‘regular floorers.’

1861. H. C. Pennell, Puck on Pegasus, p. 20. What a floorers to my hopes is this performance on the ropes! Miss Marianne suspensa scalis—(Would twere sus. per coll instead).

1868. Cassell’s Magazine, 4 Jan., p. 213. ‘Ah, she hasn’t told you of the strokes I have had, one arter the other—clean floorers, and left like a log of wood in my bed.’

2. (schools’).—A question, or a paper, too hard to master.

3. (bowling alley).—A ball that brings down all the pins.

4. (thieves’).—A thief who trips his man, and robs in picking him up; a Ramper (q.v.).

1809. G. Andrews, Dict. of the Slang and Cant Languages, s.v.

Flooring, subs. (pugilists’).—Knocking down. Hence, to vanquish in all senses.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. xii. Cross-buttocking … being as indispensable an ingredient, as nobbing, flooring, etc.

Floor-walker, subs. (American).—A shop-walker.

Flop, subs. and verb. (American university).—1. A bite (q.v.); a successful dodge.

1856. Hall, College Words and Customs. Any ‘cute’ performance by which a man is sold is a good flop, and by a phrase borrowed from the base-ball ground is ‘rightly played.’ The discomfited individual declares that they ‘are all on a side,’ and gives up, or ‘rolls over,’ by giving his opponent ‘gowdy.’ A man writes cards during examinations to ‘feeze the profs’; said cards are ‘gumming cards,’ and he flops the examination if he gets a good mark by the means. One usually flops his marks by feigning sickness.

2. (common)—A sudden fall or ‘flop’ down.

3. (common).—A collapse or breakdown.

4. (For flap or flip, old).—A light blow.

1662. Rump Songs, ii., 3. The good the Rump will do, when they prevail, Is to give us a flop with a fox’s tail, Which nobody can deny.

Verb. (colloquial).—1. To fall, or flap down suddenly. A variant of ‘flap.’ Fr., prendre un billet de parterre.

1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. iv. ch. v. She had flopped her hat over her eyes.

1859. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, bk. ii. ch. i. If you must go flopping yourself down.

1870. Public Opinion, 12 Feb. But even if they were more numerous and greater than they are, we should hold aloof from the crowd that flops in his presence with love and awe, as the dismal wife of Jerry Cruncher flopped in pious misery.

1883. The Theatre, Feb., p. 93. She is able to call in tumbling to the aid of tragedy, and bring the plastic arts to the portrayal of the passions; to flop through four such acts as these night after night, and finish with a death-scene warranted correct, to the very last kick and quiver.

1891. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 118. He cursed under his breath each time he rose to follow, and smothered a yell of pain and horror each time he flopped down.

2. (pugilists’).—To knock down; to Floor (q.v.).

1888. Sporting Life, 15 Dec. ’E carnt flop a bloke.

Adv. (colloquial).—An onomatopœia expressive of the noise of a sudden and sounding fall. Often used expletively, as slap (q.v.) is, and the American right (q.v.)

1726. Vanbrugh, Journey to London, Act I., Sc. 2. That down came I flop o’ my feace all along in the channel.

1860. Punch, v. 38, p. 255. ’Twixt two stools, flop, he let me drop, The fall it was my murther.

1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. vi. ‘She’ll roll down, papa, and come flop.’

To flop over, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To turn heavily; hence (in America), to make a sudden change of sides, association, or allegiance.

Flop-Up, subs. (American).—A day’s tramp, as opposed to a sot-down = half a day’s travel.

1888. Detroit Free Press, 15 Sept. ‘Stranger, did ye lope it?’ (come on foot). ‘Yes.’ ‘A mile or a sot down?’ ‘More’n that. About a dozen flop-ups.’

Flop-up-time = Bedtime.

[Flop, too, is something of a vocable of all-work. Thus to flop in = (venery) to effect intromission; to flop round = to loaf; to dangle; to flop a judy = to lay out, or ‘spread’ (q.v.), a girl; to do a flop = (colloquial) to sit, or to fall, down, and (venery) to lie down to a man; to flop out = to leave the water noisily and awkwardly; belly-flopping = belly-bumping, coition; a flop in the gills = a smack in the mouth.]

Florence, subs. (old)—‘A wench that has been touzed and ruffled.’

1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, and (1785) Grose, s.v.

Floster, subs. (common).—A mixed drink: sherry, noyau, peach-leaves, lemon, sugar, ice, and soda-water. Cf., Flesh-and-blood.

Flouch. To fall (or go), flouch (or floush), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To come to pieces; to sag suddenly on the removal of a restraining influence: as a pair of stays.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib, p. 13. Old Georgy went floush, and his backers look’d shy.

Flounce, verb. (colloquial).—To move with violence, and (generally) in anger. Said of women, for whom such motion is, or rather was, inseparable from a great flourishing of flounces.

Flounder, subs. (riverside thieves’).—1. A drowned corpse. Cf., Dab, and for synonyms, see Stiff.

2. (Stock Exchange).—To sell, and afterwards re-purchase a stock, or vice versâ.

1889. Echo, 1 Feb. A third expedient offers itself—namely, to turn round and buy; but this operation goes by the name of ‘floundering’ especially when the speculator loses both ways.

Flounder-and-Dab, subs. phr. (rhyming).—A cab. For synonyms, see Growler.

Flour, subs. (American).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.

Flourish, subs. (venery).—Coition in a hurry; flyer (q.v.); a fast-fuck (q.v.). Also verbally. For synonyms see Greens and Ride.

1796. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v. To enjoy a woman with her clothes on or without going to bed.

Verb (colloquial.).—To be in luck: e.g., ‘I flourish’ = ‘I am well off’; ‘Do you flourish,’ or ‘Are you flourishing?’ = ‘Have you got any money?’