Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a nouveau riche, ostentatious person.

1764		Low-life 74: The Jemmies, Brights, Flashes, Puzzes, Pizzes and Smarts of the Town [are] preparing to ride out in fives and sixes.
1790		M.P. Andrews Better Late than Never 33: What, young flash away turned duellist!
1801		R. Dighton 20 Nov. in Padbury View of Dightons (2007) 41: [pic. caption] Beau N-sh – What a Flash.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 559: Many a twelver † does he get by buying up broken images of persons who sell them by wholesale, and he of course gets them for little or nothing: then what does he do but dresses out his board, to give them the best appearance he can, and toddles into the streets, touting†† for a good customer. The first genteel bit of flash he meets that he thinks will dub up the possibles,? he dashes down the board, breaks all the broken heads, and appeals in a pitiful way for remuneration for his loss; so that nine times out of ten he gets some Johnny-raw or other to stump up the rubbish.
1911		E. Dyson ‘At the Opera’ Benno and Some of the Push 86: A brother, known as ‘The Flash’, who was recognised as one of the best-dressed ‘guns’ in the metropolis.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 74: Flash.–A gaudy or well-dressed person.

(b) fashion.

1804

Sporting Mag. Oct. XXV 45/1: Don’t you know me? Jenny Dash! / Every where the go and flash!

(c) ostentation, showiness, vulgarity; used pos. as wit (see cite 1779); also adj. (see cite 1872).

1760		B. Weatherby Great News from Hell 14: Three Irish Fortune-hunters, who [...] used to cut no small Flash about the Garden.
1779		Thrale Thraliana i Mar. 24 375: What says I should we call our Paper? Oh the Flasher to be sure says She—we have a Hack Phrase here at Streatham of call’g ev’ry thing Flash which we want other folks to call Wit.
1793		J. O’Keeffe London Hermit (1794) 19: You can keep pace with them in flash and expenses.
1798		‘Humbug Club Song’ in Hilaria 43: The captain’s a compound of flash and cockade, / Cosmetics, pink powder, with curl carronade, / And his feats are confin’d to box-lobby parade.
1837		‘Midnight Mishaps’ Bentley’s Misc. Aug. 203: ‘No flash, – it won’t do, – you’ll undress,’ said the taller of the three.
1837		Sydney Gaz. 5 Dec. 2/5: With respect to that spirit of association which is understood among you by the slang term of ‘Flash,’ I would entreat all those who are not bent on getting hanged, to beware of giving into it.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 129: I make allowances for the gear, and the gettin’ up, and the vampin’, and all that sort o’ flash.
1857		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 25 Apr. 3/1–2: [Bobby is] always on points, and somewhat ambitious to give important arrests to the stiffs (newspapers) for the purpose of making a terrible flash and gammoning the flats.
1872		E. Perkins Saratoga in 1901 207: Cant words [...] used to be the mode at Saratoga years ago. Swell, nobby, spooney, jolly, loud, bore and a half-dozen other flash words.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 327: He ast me fur the loan of the diamond an’ emerald ring he gimme, so’s tuh make a flash before his uncle from Ireland who’s got money.
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 225: flash—[...] showy appearance.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 73: To show he was a big-timer, he flashed me in front o’ Kinky. Kinky had a grand eye for that kind o’ flashes.
1940		J.H. O’Hara Pal Joey 39: Think of the flash, as they used to say in vaudeville.
a.1955		‘Good-Doing Wheeler’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 77: I don’t go for no flash, I’m out for cash.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 98: You ain’t got no front and flash.
1973		The Who ‘Bell Boy’ 🎵 on Quadrophrenia [album] I work in a hotel, all gilt and flash.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 96: Shuggie was a hybrid of flab and flash.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 98: It [i.e. a performance] needed some flash.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 132: The foundations have rotted, but the flash remains.
2005		G. Pelecanos Drama City 106: Show no flash, hold a job up at the car wash.
2009		T. Black Gutted 59: The flash, the wheels, the bling, the clobber...it’s as obvious as a donkey’s cock.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 229: He wore his best jewelry. Rolex watch, diamond pinkie ring, a gold bracelet [...] it all served as distraction and decoy. The more flash you wore, the more chance that someone was looking at the shine and not at your four-card pull.
2022		J. Meades in LRB 9 June 🌐 [O]ur new slebs, quick learners all. It’s their world now: bling, glitz, flash.

(d) (US Und.) a show-off, a braggart.

1919

C.S. Montanye ‘White as Snow’ Detective Story 18 Feb. 🌐 Why, that cheap flash couldn’t get even with a wop peanut seller!

(e) (US Und.) a suit of clothes.

1929		C.G. Givens ‘Chatter of Guns’ Sat. Eve. Post 13 Apr.; list extracted in AS VI:2 (1930) 132: flash, n. Suit of clothes.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 71/1: Flash, n. [...] 6. A suit of clothes; an outfit.

(f) (Aus.) one’s personal appearance.

1943

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. (2nd edn).

(a) cant or criminal slang; also attrib.

1747		Life and Character of Moll King 10: This Flash, as it is called, is talking in Cant Terms, very much us’d among Rakes and Town Ladies.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 144: The explanation of the Cant, Flash and Slang terms [...] gives at one view, a perfect knowledge of the artifices, combinations, modes and habits of those invaders of our property, our safety and our lives, who have a language quite unintelligible to any but themselves.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1793		W. Trench Settlement at Port Jackson 207: A leading distinction, which marked the convicts on their outset in the colony, was an use of what is called the flash, or kiddy language.
c.1800		‘The Blue Lion’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 31: They’ll cut a dash, and hear the flash.
1819		T. Moore ‘Ya-Hip, My Hearties!’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 88: I soon learned to patter flash.
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry I iv: Flash, my young friend, or slang, as others call it, is the classical language of the Holy Land; in other words, St. Giles’s greek [...] Flash, my young friend, or slang, as others call it, is a species of cant in which the knowing ones conceal their roguery from the flats.
1834		‘All England Now are Slanging It’ Museum of Mirth 40/1: No, no Barbary tongue at all, merely a little rum slum to put the knowing ones awake and queer the flats with. [...] Flash is cant, cant is patter, patter is lingo, lingo is language, and language is flash.
1840		N.Y. Daily Express 20 Nov. 2/7: Robbing Store Tills. — [...] Among thieves this feat is termed in their flash dialect till-tilting.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 4 Mar. 2/1: I was nabbed (I know you understand a little flash).
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 39: I’ve got but one book on the flash, and that’s Captain Grose’s dictionary.
1858		O.W. Holmes Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 300: The young fellow called John [...] said it was ‘rum’ to hear me ‘pitchin’ into fellers’ for ‘goin’ it in the slang line,’ when I used all the flash words myself.
1865		J.F. Mortlock Experiences of a Convict (1965) 120: To ‘stick up’ a person, house, or dray, means, in Australian ‘flash’ phraseology, to come suddenly with presented arms upon them.
1873		Sl. Dict. 163: Flash ‘flash, my young friend, or Slang, as others call it, is the classical language of the Holy Land; in other words, St. Giles’s Greek.’ ? Tom and Jerry, by Moncreiff. Vulgar language was first termed FLASH in the year 1718, by Hitchin, author of ‘The Regulator of Thieves, &c., with account of flash words.’ “FLASH” is sometimes exchangeable with ‘fancy.’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Flash - The Cant talk among thieves and ‘The talent’.
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish III 86: Some knowledge of slang is and always was part of a gentleman’s education. 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 [...] thieves’ argot.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 24/1: ‘Twisting a fawnie’ is ‘flash’–slang for stealing wedding-rings.
1986		G.A. Wilkes Exploring Aus. Eng. 13: One enterprising convict, James Hardy Vaux, put together a vocabulary of the criminal slang of the colony – the ‘flash’ language – in 1812.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 32: This criminal argot, or flash language, used for clandestine communication within the convict subculture, gave quite a few terms to the broader vernacular.

(b) a generic term for the criminal underworld.

1800		Sporting Mag. Apr. XVI 26/2: Within a rattler stands Moll Flash, / To see the kiddies die.
1810		‘Crib & the Black’ Egan Boxiana I (1971) 481: Ye swells, ye flash, ye milling coves, who this hard light see, / Let us drink to these heroes, come join along with me.

(c) sporting jargon.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 80: Of course, those words and sayings which are appropriate to the turf, the ring, and field-sports, are equally considered as flash.

(a) (UK Und.) a large bundle of notes, esp. when used in a game of three-card monte to entice victims; thus make a flash v., to exhibit a large bundle of notes.

1833		‘Her Muns with a Grin’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 50: All moonshine to stash — is the young lightning’s flash / [...] / that is got a by a smash, / At the vendor of vet.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 46: He can always make a flash o’ the long green.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 12: If a man or a woman made a flash of any kind there they was either torpedoed (drugged) or robbed.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 218: If they are absolutely broke they get their pals to set them up with what is termed ‘a flash,’ that is a wad of notes to be flashed in front of a victim.
1947		C.S. Montanye ‘Frozen Stiff’ Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 Tommy had the visitor’s leather, full of green, in a hip pocket, along with his flash.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 101: Want to show a bundle of flash? The banker will benevolently count it out for you.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 30: I had loaned him my total flash.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] Junior brought out the flash money — a hundred wrapped around a thick wad of ones.

(b) (UK Und.) imitation gold coins or banknotes; also attrib.

1867		H.L Williams Ticket-of-Leave Man 26: Converting the twenty-pound ‘flash’ into cash, or as Jem would have said: ‘Planting the big ’un!’.
1906		Marvel 17 Nov. 47 2: He was a useful chap at passing the flash stuff [...] ‘Gave me a free hand looking after my work here – turning out flash money, which paid a sight better than the doss-house, you bet!’ [...] By this time he had sorted out from the box several bundles of forged banknotes.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 81: Imitation Bank of England notes known as ‘flash’. (So called because it is ‘flashed’ before the eyes of a dupe).

(c) (UK/US Und.) cheap but alluring items, e.g. cheap jewellery, used to lure players into carnival games, confidence tricks etc.

c.1921		T. Norman Penny Showman 50: The front flash or paintings were fastened up in the windows.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl. 37: flash, n. 1. Cheap jewlery; anything that is meant to be impressive.
1934		J.L. Kuethe ‘Prison Parlance’ in AS IX:1 26: flash. Something that attracts attention.
1949		‘I’ll Gyp You Every Time’ in C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 178: The prizes I used as ‘flash’ — percolators, blankets, clocks — were also numbered.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 322: Flash, 1. A display to attract gambling victims.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 94: ‘I’ve got the best flash in the whole gaff’.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Flash (n) — Your best-looking prizes, arrayed to catch the eye of the crowd. ‘Hard flash’ is large and expensive-looking prizes. These items may be completely impossible to win, the lesser prizes being hidden under the counter.

(d) (US) (genuine) jewels.

1948

C.S. Montanye ‘Crepe for Suzette’ Thrilling Detective Oct. 🌐 [of emeralds] So Nick still thought I had the green flash?

(e) anything counterfeit.

1963

A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 147: My friend here wants to know if them pointers are real or just for flash.

(f) (US gay) cheap jewellery worn by homosexual males.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 82: flash [...] 2. flashy jewelry of poor workmanship; going the flash = wearing cheap jewelry.

(a) (orig. US) a quick look around.

1899		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in the Hearts of his Countrymen 130: Run in, an’ take a flash iv it.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 230: It’s a pipe he never took more’n one flash.
1929		E. Booth Stealing Through Life 295: Stick with Buddy a moment – I’ll take a flash myself.

(b) (orig. US) a brief glimpse [initially a ref. to the conscious ‘flashing’ by striptease/burlesque artists].

1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 17: ‘Well, de hobo gets a flash of him an’ lets one yell out [...] an’ tears fer de front door’.
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 44: Just then I got a flash of Dike Lawrence bearing down in our direction.
1917		Van Loan ‘By a Hair’ Old Man Curry 70: These burglars could take one flash at the top of the deck and know just when to draw.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 250: Lots of guys passsing turns for another flash at her. She was easy to look at and no mistake.
1938		R. Chandler ‘Red Wind’ in Red Wind (1946) 28: I got a flash of him on the street night before last but I lost him.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 87: That will give him the first flash.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 71/1: Flash, n. [...] 3. A glance, as at credentials.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 322: Flash, [...] 2. A glance. 3. A signal of recognition.
1992		M. Frayn Now You Know 246: Got this picture out of his bag, so I know he wants to give me a flash of it.

(c) a brief glimpse when offered to a man by a woman inadvertently revealing her thighs, breasts or genitals; or vice versa, of a penis.

[1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 81: He had gone to the Dressing Room and taken a private Flash at the Magazine Beauty].
c.1935		‘Mae West in “The Hip Flipper”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 93: Lotta got a flash of the Johnson bar.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 202: We all have our obsessions, and Mick’s was what he called a ‘flash’, a view of thigh and knicker.
1971		Current Sl. V:4.
1982		P. Bailey Eng. Madam 32: Some of them wouldn’t leave the office until I’d given them a quick flash.
1985		E. Leonard Glitz 8: Pissing in an alley when a girl comes along? Pretend you don’t see her and give her a flash?
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 148: Tracy’s goodbye flash brings a hoot and a holler from a squad of giggling pogues as they shove past me, hot on her trail.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 40: ‘It’s amazing how far a little flash goes,’ she added cheekily, slowly raising her skirt [...] to show the crotch of her white lace panties.
2004		happyhooking.blogspot.com 24 July 🌐 Men will loudly exclaim ‘Oh my god’ when you accidentally give them an upskirt flash while you’re not paying attention.

(d) a sign of flirtatious behaviour.

1986

F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 266: When we went to Ally’s party, back in Geordie land, she definitely gave me a flash.

(a) (US) a surprising piece of news or a rumour.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 223: After you’d got your money down on the right one [...] the flash ’ud come in on one of the other skates.
1928		Hecht & MacArthur Front Page Act III: Hold the wire! I’ve got a flash for you.
1953		E. Wilson Look Who’s Abroad Now 19: ‘I would like you to let me have $150’ [...] Flash! I did not give him the $150.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 799: flash – A rumor.
1969		L. Schecter Jocks 37: The year Stengel was fired the Associated Press flash said he had ‘resigned’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 82: flash 1. tidings, news scoop.
1977		A. Hoffman Property Of (1978) 224: I got a flash for you [...] It ain’t yours no more.

(b) (US) a burst of inspiration, a sudden idea.

1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 90: However, I have a flash. I got it when come along in that car.
1934		C. Sandburg letter 9 May in Mitgang (1968) 305: I had a flash that the Hand of the Potter felt experimental.
1949		A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 140: Alvin Karpis had a hot flash. ‘Why don’t we all go to Florida?’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 20: Jack and I had been overseas together after we cleaned up on a flash we worked on the cockies outback.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 8: I got this here flash – like, why don’t make with something new.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 11: The real vision, the real freaking flash, was just like the reality.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 29: She [...] had a flash that made her feel a whole lot more integrated about Kate.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 106: He stopped on a flash: garbage cans, full, lined both sides of the street.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 253: Flash: call Katie. No, give her the space she’s claiming.

(c) a flashback.

1929		E. Booth Stealing Through Life 287: There had been a time when it would have made a sensation, but not now [...] it would be only a one-day flash.
1996		S. Frank Get Shorty [film script] MARTIN: I’m sitting here, I’m looking at you and I’m having these flashes. You know, flashbacks, of memories. (touches her hair) Of us.

(a) the instantaneous effect that follows the injection of a narcotic or other drug; also in non-drug use.

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 16: It was a lot more than a mere sex flash.
1959		cited in L.A. Times in Spears (1986).
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 43: Cocaine and bombitas are both stimulants, and combined with heroin, a depressant, they produce an electrifying ‘rush’ or ‘flash’ far more pleasurable to the addict than heroin alone.
1973		C. Gaines Stay Hungry 145: I just shot it up and sat there laughing at this spade I was with while I had this monster flash, like creamin off in my head.
1980		Jackson & Christian Death Row 202: I went over the same things to try to be high again [...] I’m happy, but I don’t have that flash like I had.
1981		E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 285: They’re starting that lately [i.e. adding procaine to heroin], makes the flash stronger . . . but they cut the dope.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 59: Flash – the effect of cocaine and to a lesser extent methedrine.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 89: It makes the flash better.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 9: Flash — [...] the rush of cocaine injection.
2010		K. Richards Life 260: If you do it in the vein you get an incredible flash.

(b) a flashback to a previous psychotropic drug experience.

1968

N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 240: Everybody gets acid flashes – suddenly something trips you out and you’re back up high.

(c) the effect of LSD.

1971

Current Sl. V:4.

(d) LSD.

1977		S.N. Pradhan Drug Abuse.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 9: Flash — LSD.