/flæʃ/
OriginIn some senses, from Middle English flasshen, a variant of flasken, flaskien (“to sprinkle, splash”), which was likely of imitative origin; in other senses probably of North Germanic origin akin to Swedish dialectal flasa (“to burn brightly, blaze”), related to flare. Compare also Icelandic flasa (“to rush, go hastily”).
- transitiveTo cause to shine briefly or intermittently.
“He flashed the light at the water, trying to see what made the noise.”
- intransitiveTo blink; to shine or illuminate intermittently.
“The light flashed on and off.”
“Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed—her cheek crimsoned.”
“Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden be”
- intransitiveTo be visible briefly.
“The scenery flashed by quickly.”
“Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of”
- transitiveTo make visible briefly.
“A number will be flashed on the screen.”
“The special agents flashed their badges as they entered the building.”
“She flashed me a smile from the car window.”
- ambitransitive, informalTo expose one's intimate body part or undergarment, often momentarily and unintentionally. (Contrast streak.)
“She flashed a vocalist at a rock concert.”
“Her skirt was so short that she flashed her underpants as she was getting out of her car.”
- figurativelyTo break forth like a sudden flood of light; to show a momentary brilliance.
“For although party's worn-out moulds have been shivered, and names which have flashed and thundered as the watchwords of unnumbered struggles for power are now fast waning into history, it is too much”
“But while he jested thus, / A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act. / Remembering how we three presented Maid, / Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, / In masque or pageant at my”
“The Isabella [Isabella, or the Pot of Basil], then, is a perfect treasure-house of graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanza there occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turn”
- To flaunt; to display in a showy manner.
“He flashed a wad of hundred-dollar bills.”
- To communicate quickly.
“The news services flashed the news about the end of the war to all corners of the globe.”
“to flash a message along the telephone wires; to flash conviction on the mind”
- To move, or cause to move, suddenly.
“Flash forward to the present day.”
“Deep folly! yet that this could be—
That I could wing my will with might
To leap the grades of life and light,
And flash at once, my friend, to thee: […]”
“But they survived some real pressure as David Murphy flashed a header inches wide of Rob Green's right-hand post[…].”
- transitiveTo telephone a person, only allowing the phone to ring once, in order to request a call back.
“Susan flashed Jessica, and then Jessica called her back, because Susan didn't have enough credit on her phone to make the call.”
- intransitiveTo evaporate suddenly. (See flash evaporation.)
- transitiveTo climb (a route) successfully on the first attempt.
- transitiveTo write to the memory of (an updatable component such as a BIOS chip or games cartridge).
“In order to flash a custom ROM to a phone, the boot loader must be unlocked first.”
- transitiveTo cover with a thin layer, as objects of glass with glass of a different colour.
- transitiveTo expand (blown glass) into a disc.
- transitiveTo send by some startling or sudden means.
- intransitiveTo burst out into violence.
- To perform a flash.
- To release the pressure from a pressurized vessel.
- obsolete, transitiveTo trick up in a showy manner.
“Oft have I ſeaſoned ſavory periods / With ſugar'd words, to delude Guſtus' taſte, / And oft embelliſh'd my entreative phraſe, / Limning and flaſhing it with various dyes, / To draw proud Viſus to me b”
- obsolete, transitiveTo strike and throw up large bodies of water from the surface; to splash.
“The varlet ſaw, when to the flood he came, / How without ſtop or ſtay he fiercely lept, / And deep himſelfe beducked in the ſame, / That in the lake his loftie creſt was ſteept, / Ne of his ſafetie ſe”
- To flash back.
“Kevin, one of the first buddies in Boston lies calmly, very thin in the casket. I think of his face angrily making a point at a meeting or happily hosting his Christmas party. I flash to my father's w”
- countable, uncountableA sudden, short, temporary burst of light.
“Between 8 and 9 p.m., the recorder at a meteorological station at Harrow, Middlesex, picked up 1,470 lightning flashes within a radius of 10 to 15 miles, and observers at the station described the sto”
- countable, uncountableA very short amount of time.
“[F]or Empire and Greatneſs it importeth moſt, that a Nation do profeſs Arms as their principal Honour, Study and Occupation: […] The Fabrick of the State of Sparta was wholly (though not wiſely) frame”
“Quick—something must be done! done in a flash, too! But the very imminence of the emergency paralyzed his invention.”
- US, colloquial, countable, uncountableA flashlight; an electric torch.
“I reached a flash out of my car pocket and went down-grade and looked at the car.”
- countable, figuratively, uncountableA sudden and brilliant burst, as of genius or wit.
“[B]reath his faults ſo quaintly, / That they may ſeeme the taints of liberty; / The flaſh and out-breake of a fiery minde, / A ſauagenes in vnreclaim'd bloud of generall aſſault.”
“I cannot learn that he [Patrick Henry] gave, in his youth, any evidence of that precocity which sometimes distinguishes uncommon genius. His companions recollect no instance of premature wit, no strik”
“Fabio Capello insisted [Wayne] Rooney was in the right frame of mind to play in stormy Podgorica despite his father's arrest on Thursday in a probe into alleged betting irregularities, but his flash o”
- figuratively, uncountablePizzazz, razzle-dazzle.
“Above all, they hate flash. Just as the English working class has always been, they are fiercely puritanical and abhor all forms of display.”
“Another pleasant surprise of She-Devil is director Susan Seidelman's infusion of political moxie into the movie, a departure from her tendency to dish out lots of flash with little substance.”
“The ATF sound was lacking in extended solos, flash, and pomposity, but CBS liked the group's respect for traditional Anglo-rock, their Beatles-like energy, and the splashes of Yes, Genesis, and 10cc t”
- countable, uncountableMaterial left around the edge of a moulded part at the parting line of the mould.
- British, Cockney, countable, uncountableThe strips of bright cloth or buttons worn around the collars of market traders.
- countable, uncountableA pattern where each prop is thrown and caught only once.
- countable, uncountableA language, created by a minority to maintain cultural identity, that cannot be understood by the ruling class.
- abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, countable, uncountableClipping of camera flash (“a device used to produce a flash of artificial light to help illuminate a scene”).
- archaic, countable, uncountableA preparation of capsicum, burnt sugar, etc., for colouring liquor to make it look stronger.
- countable, uncountableA form of military insignia.
“I just got my first commando flash.”
- abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, uncountableClipping of flash memory.
“The hybrid drive has 500 gigabytes of hard disk space for bulk storage and 2 gigabytes of high-speed flash for caching frequently-accessed files.”
- countable, uncountableAny of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Artipe, Deudorix and Rapala.
- countable, uncountableA tattoo flash (example design on paper to give an idea of a possible tattoo).
- countable, uncountableThe sudden sensation of being "high" after taking a recreational drug.
“At three-thirty that afternoon Max, Tom, and Sharon placed tabs under their tongues and sat together in the living room to wait for the flash.”
“A few seconds following the injection, the user experiences a sudden, intense generalized sensation which has both physiological and psychological characteristics. […] pure, commercially produced prod”
“The flash — the odd combination of a cocoon-comfort and an inexplicable physical ascendency to a "high" — provides the major incentive for the new experimenter to move to the next phase of his career.”
- countable, uncountableSynonym of flashback (“recurrence of the effects of a hallucinogenic drug”).
“I'd heard about LSD and wanted to try it early on, but I'd also heard of delayed reactions, called acid flashes, brought on by unexpected stimuli; they could prove fatally disorienting.”
- countable, dated, uncountableA newsflash.
“The United Press got the flash "Germans declare martial law in Ruhr" […]”
- countable, uncountableA brief exposure or making visible (of a smile, badge, etc).
“I didn't need them anymore. The police badge worked like a dream with both Alice and Kerry. One quick flash of the badge, and they were in the car and out of the rain. No questions asked.”
“Gabriel grabbed her wrist and spun her around, stepping forward right in her face, showing a brief flash of fangs this time. “Not good enough. I can haul you over my shoulder if that's the way it has ”
“She ended the question with a flash of a smile that took more energy than she'd ever thought a mere smile could.”
- countable, uncountableThe (intentional or unintentional) exposure of an intimate body part or undergarment in public.
“panty flash”
“[…] the answer came to her. Camera flashes. That strobing light had been the flash of a camera. Icy panic poured through her body. She had a vision of Janet Jackson's boob flash at the Super Bowl;[…]”
““Would you like a boob flash?” Hundred token tips began to flow in. “Thanks guys, and she read off the user names. That deserves more than just a flash.” She pulled up the hem of her top and turned le”
- abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountableEllipsis of hook flash.
- A pool of water, in some areas especially one that is marshy, and/or one formed by subsidence of the ground due to mining. (Compare flush (“marsh; pool”).)
“their hearts lie lumpish as a Log that lies in a flash of water seven years together”
“The […] woods, commons, ponds, 'flashes,' bogs, 'damp spots,' and ditches are, when the number and rarity of some of the species are taken into account, the richest botanical ground in Lincolnshire;”
“It includes deep holes, wet and dry, and the hill-and-dale formations left by the mechanical excavation of sand, gravel, clay, ironstone and other surface-worked minerals; the heaps of shale, waste pr”
- A reservoir and sluiceway beside a navigable stream, just above a shoal, so that the stream may pour in water as boats pass, and thus bear them over the shoal.
- Australia, British, New-Zealand, slangExpensive-looking and demanding attention; stylish; showy.
“The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;”
- UKHaving plenty of ready money.
- UKLiable to show off expensive possessions or money.
“Bit of a flash git, don't you think?”
- US, slangOccurring very rapidly, almost instantaneously.
- obsolete, slangRelating to thieves and vagabonds.
“the flash language: thieves' cant or slang”
“flash notes: counterfeit banknotes”
“Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny?”
- A multimedia platform, most often used for adding animation and interactivity to webpages.
“Your Web site doesn't have to be full of the latest dropdowns, rollovers, superslick graphics, or Flash videos.”
“Flash games are ever so popular on the Web. As the capabilities of the Flash Player continue to improve, better and more powerful games can be built.”
- Any of various DC Comics superheroes who have the power of superspeed, derived from an energy called the Speed Force.
Formsflashes(present, singular, third-person) · flashing(participle, present) · flashed(participle, past) · flashed(past) · flashes(plural) · more flash(comparative) · most flash(superlative) · Flash(canonical) · the Flash(canonical)