Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an idle tale, a piece of nonsense.

1618		Fletcher Loyal Subject IV iv: A very fooles: thou hast more of these flams in thee, These musty doubts.
1672		M. Atkins Cataplus 82: Good deeds are but flams.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 184: Gan.: Sure thou are one of those same Folk as / I’ve heard him call a Hocus-Pocus. Jup.: No, my sweet Boy, thou tell’st a Flam, / Not Eagle I, nor Juggler am.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 3: If you’ll take notice of his Shams, / He’ll tell you a thousand lying Flams.
1748–49		Cleland Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 8: I had been chear’d up, and entertain’d by the way with the most plausible flams.
1781		‘Irish Ballad’ in Bullfinch 80: Then be easy, dear creatures [...] Your trouble is all but a flam.
1818		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in Paris Letter III 20: Talk of England — her famed Magna Charta, I swear, is / A humbug, a flam.
1821		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Wife (1868) 262/1: She threw about her lively flams, / And scatter’d round her epigrams.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 246: Harry [...] told you as ’ow it vas all a flam about the child in the bundle!
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker (1843) I 18: Colonel Crockett, the greatest hand at a flam in our nation.
1860		Era (London) 20 May 4/3: This I believe to be a regular flam.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 June 3/1: The threatened libel action of Marcus Clarke against David Blair is all a ‘flam,’ and only an excuse for a little cheap publicity.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 31 July 4/8: The much-dreaded Influx is all tommy-rot, / Distorted flap-doodle and flam.
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 79: Neither puritanical flam nor structural imperfections need stand in the way.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 June 2nd sect. 12/8: What is this bit of nosey flam / That Israel Zangwill has us on?
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 56: But its all the merest fudge and flam, really.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘Introduction’ Moods of Ginger Mick xi: An’ Mick, ’e looks on swank an’ style as jist a lot o’ flam, / An’ snouted them that snouted ’im, an’ never give a dam.

2. a lie, a deception.

1665		‘R.M.’ Scarronides 42: She spake like the Devil’s Dam, A flattring Slut, ’twas but a flam.
a.1680		Rochester ‘In Defense of Satire’ Works of Rochester (1721) 62: With some smooth Flam / He gravely on the Publick strives to sham.
1687		C. Sedley Bellamira I i: It prove a Lye, a Flam, a Wheadle,’ twill out.
1691		‘The Virgin’s Complaint’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) II 930: Robin came upon the Sham, / Told me many [a] Lye and Flam.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Flam a Trick, or Sham-story.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:7 27: All their Pains and Politicks, / Their Shams, and Flams, and pretty Tricks.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1730		J. Miller Humours of Oxford II i: Pooh, pooh; all Flam, Madam.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1742–4		(con. 1680s) R. North Lives of the Norths (1890) I 368: They must have known his lordship better and not have ventured such flams at him.
1754		Foote Knights in Works (1799) I 76: Plain as a pike-staff, knight; all as nature made her; hey, Tim, no flams!
1760		Foote The Minor 66: Had the flam been fact, your behaviour was natural enough.
1772		G. Stevens ‘The Jolly Soul’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 63: As to pulpit palaver, why, that’s all a flam.
1784		J. O’Keeffe Fontainebleau in Dramatic Works (1798) II 208: Avoid strangers,[...] all upon the sharp they’ll introduce themselves, intrude their conversation, amuse you with some flam of their families.
1795		M.P. Andrews Mysteries of the Castle 41: My dear lost lady was still alive [...] the great burial was all a flam.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1820		Jack Randall’s Diary 32: My friend is once more putting in his claim to be considered as an accomplished Fibber, and that his declaration of ‘cutting his sticks,’ as all – a Flam.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 276: Dear Gram, – I don’t care a D--n, / If your letter is only a soldier’s Flam.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1837		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 263: Deuceace’s flam about Prince Tallyram was puffickly successful.
1840		London Mag. Feb. 2/1: Pshaw! [...] Flam won’t go down with me.
1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 45: Oust the untrustworthy President Flam, / An’ stick honest President Sham in his place.
1850		D. Jerrold 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.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 367/1: There are few who take money; indeed they profess to take none at all. ‘But that is all flam,’ said my informant.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 602: Flambustious, a fictitious word made from flam, a lie, denotes something great and showy.
1877		‘Comical Incidents’ Laughing Songster 62: As Betty Crump had ta’en the cag, / I think the sex all flam.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Good-Night’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 174: You sponges miking round the pubs, / You flymy titters fond of flam.
1909		A. Quiller-Couch True Tilda 56: That was all flam [...] I was kiddin’ of ’er – tellin’ what wasn’t true.
1913		E. Pugh Punch and Judy 93: Can ’t we see through all his fake and flam and spot the good heart underneath?

3. a liar.

1893

Sunderland Echo 10 June 4/1: the fact is, ladies, you are, in this case, shams and flams.