Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a mild oath; occas. as adv.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 July 13/4: Pooh, why not? Why can’t you tell a flaming lie, as I did?
1894		H. Lawson ‘Two Dogs and a Fence’ in Roderick (1972) 272: Why, you’re worse than a flaming old slut!
1901		B. Pain De Omnibus 60: ’E’s a flimin’ volkiner at a meetin’, but ’e’s a apolergizin’ time rabbit at ’ome.
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 22: ‘Flamin’, blazin’ liars!’ cried Annie.
1915		C.J. Dennis ‘A Spring Song’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 13: I’m crook; me name is Mud; I’ve done me dash; / Me flamin’ spirit’s got the flamin’ hump!
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 271: Goggins, you’re the flamingest dirty devil I ever met, do you knowadj1?
1923		N.Z. Truth 22 Dec. 5/3: The flamin’ thing ain’t mine.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘’Ave a ’Eart!’ in Rose of Spadgers 80: I tells ’im straight I’d let no flamin’ bloke / Take pot shots at me with no flamin’ gun.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 466: These flaming little pierrots are knocking hell out of the returns.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 193: Go to ruddy stinkin’ flamin’ jiggery!
1940		‘The Firth of Flaming Forth’ in C.H. Ward-Jackson Airman’s Song Book (1945) 117: We made a flaming landfall / In the Firth of Flaming Forth, / Ain’t the Air Force flaming awful?
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 18 Apr. [synd. cartoon strip] I’m flamin’ well fed up!!!
1945		J. Henderson Gunner Inglorious (1974) 15: I’m a flamin’ uncle again.
1955		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Feb. 48: They’ve propped for a while because the town hall, when it landed, came down fair on the skull of a charlie wheeler and she’s out like a flamin’ light.
1959		K. Waterhouse Billy Liar (1962) 13: ’Ere, rear, rear, watch your bloody language! With you flaming this and flaming that!
1963		A.E. Farrell Vengeance 8: ‘Holy, flaming, blasted blue blazes,’ the old man erupted.
1975		D. Nobbs Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976) 110: Cor blimey, all right, I’ll go for a flaming walk.
1982		L. Cody Bad Company 39: You can say that again with flaming knobs on.
1988		B. Humphries Complete Barry McKenzie 11: Me and me mates used to drink it [...] like it was going out of fashion. We’d flamin’ spill more than we drank.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 66: It was flamin’ complicated. [Ibid.] 123: I’m nuts [...] I am a flamin’ fruitcake!
1998		V. McDarmid Star Struck (1999) 137: Flamin’ Nora, Kate. When did a woman ever regret [etc].
2000		Indep. Rev. 13 June 7: It’s a flamin’ hoot.
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 180: ‘Get out of it you flamin’ galah!’.

2. as a congratulatory epithet.

1940		J.G. Brandon Gang War 201: You is ’igh up in the C.I.D., and as everybody knows the best flamin’ top-piece as they’ve got in the ’ole works.
1948		P. Kavanagh Tarry Flynn (1965) 64: I say, there’s flaming great spuds. You must have shoved on the potash, no matter what you say.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 139: The girl’s a flaming genius [...] Not only takes shorthand and types five thousand words a second, but dictates too.

3. as infix.

1938		Ellesmere Guardian (N.Z.) 29 Mar. 6/3: That there Sir flamin’ Walter Thorley owns half Australia.
1959		B. Naughton ‘A Skilled Man’ in Late Night on Watling Street (1969) 21: You’re Mister flamin’ know-all you are.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 108: I didn’t let that bastard into Buck House. It is co-flamin’-incidence.
1986		T. Winton That Eye, The Sky 118: Morton-flamin’-Flack, what the hell do you think you’re doing?