Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. excessively noticeable, flagrant, monstrous; also as adv.

1689		T. Shadwell Bury Fair II i: I hear there’s a flaming French Beau come to Town.
1738		Swift Polite Conversation 53: lord sp.: My Lady Smart, your Ladyship has a very fine Scarf. lady sm.: Yes, my Lord, it will make a flaming Figure in a Country Church.
1742–4		(con. 1680s) R. North Lives of the Norths (1890) I 328: I think it was Smith; and being flaming drunk [...] fell to talking and staring like a madman.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 435: Those damn’d brass lacquer’d nails that shine, / And make his cart so flaming fine.
c.1780		‘On Newgate Steps Jack Chance was Found’ 🎵 To strut in the park it was all his pride, / With a flaming whore stuck by his side.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 256: That pair of flaming pye-bald nags.
1802		Sporting Mag. Aug. XX 280/1: My Deary was rather remarkably dressed, being in flaming yellow, with a pink parasol.
1819		W. Oxberry Actress of All Work 4: A new theatre, and a company of first-rate talent, [...] I’ll write a flaming puff for the opening.
1825		N.Y. National Advocate 20 July 2: It seems that the project originated with Mr. Webster, who is a flaming republican of the new school.
1833		‘Life In London’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 11: To be a regular first-rate swell, / A flaming out-and-outer.
1837		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 317: He roat back the following letter to his father, as well as a flaming one to Miss.
1840		E. Howard Jack Ashore II 213: ‘John Truepenny,’ said the bumboat woman, ‘we have both made flaming noodles of ourselves.’.
1845		Kalida Venture (OH) 4 Apr. 1/1: [He] would cut such a dash, and make such a flaming appearance as to steal the heart of every girl.
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 9: ‘Well, what do you think of that? have you got the uglies?’ ‘No,’ replied she, ‘but I’ve got the flaming p-x.’.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 July 3/5: Twig her red ribbons! there goes a flaming faggot!
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 408: The respectable firm in New York who sent him the handsome letter, with a view ‘to make his own future fortune,’ according to the flaming seductive Circular.
1898		H.H. Lewis A Gunner Aboard the ‘Yankee’ 188: The men wore flaming neckties, gay shirts.
1907		‘A Cronk Camp’ Truth (Wellington) 19 Jan. 5: Of course the use of flaming talk isn’t commendable.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 228: Grindle, set off by a pair of flaming ‘sideboards’, himself ushered Mahoney into the sanctum.
1925		Advertiser (Adelaide) 6 Jan. 7/7: This winter [...] is to be one of flaming fashions — no other word will quite describe it. We’re all to look gay and dashing.
1929		Carins Post (Qld) 4 June 5/3: Mr MacDonald, whatever he may be in theory, is in practice not at all flaming radical.
1930		(con. 1917) ‘W.W. Windstaff’ ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 278: I went raving, flaming mad when it got too much.
1945		M. Page ‘Wait Till You Get To New Guinea’ Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 173: The playboys of the desert, / We lived like flaming dukes.
1959		B. Naughton ‘The Half-Nelson Touch’ in Late Night on Watling Street (1969) 135: Shut up, you flamin’ mutt’.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 256: Just what the Rosenbergs had to look forward to. ‘Flaming Reds’, the papers called them.
1978		A. Burgess 1985 (1980) 165: I was a bloody fool and a flaming idiot.
1981		G. Johnston Fish Factory 176: A double bed in a unit of the Flaming Roo Motel.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 123: I’m nuts [...] I am a flamin’ fruitcake!
1993		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 2: flaming – extreme, radical. ‘My friend is such a flaming feminist – she’s stopped shaving her legs.’.
2005		D. Jenkins Slim & None 46: [H]e hit a flaming hook into the pines [...] on the left side of the fairway.

2. (US gay) ostentatiously homosexual; thus in comb. as flaming faggot, flaming queen.

[1826		letter in Duberman ‘Writhing Bedfellows’ in Journal Homosexuality (1980/81) VI Fall/Winter 88: The flaming excess of your lustful appetite may drag down the vengeance of a supernal power].
1964		Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 26: Glossary of Homosexual Terms [...] screaming bitchor flaming bitch: An exhibitionist who outwardly proclaims his homosexuality and his homosexual inclinations.
1964		Lavender Lex. n.p.: flaming faggot:– See Faggot.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 16: flaming queen (n.): The homosexual male who uses cosmetics, hair sets, flamboyant clothes and, in general, displays feminism at all times to emphasize his homosexuality.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 73: stereotype effeminate homosexual [...] flaming bitch [faggot, lady, queen].
1989		Kirk & Madsen After The Ball 286: As long as all gays are thought to be obvious flaming freaks, only obvious flaming freaks will come out.
1998		R. Scott Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 flame or flaming — extravagantly effeminate and flamboyant, an adjective usually applied to gay men.
2000		Eminem ‘Marshall Mathers’ 🎵 I don’t get fucked in mine like you two little flaming faggots!
2005		(con. 1960s) E. White My Lives 180: We systematically suspected every man, no matter how podgy or uxorious, of being a flaming homosexual.

3. (US campus) sexy.

1999

Eble Campus Sl. Nov.

4. (Irish) drunk.

2001

G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Flaming (a): drunk.