Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to perpetrate or subject to a confidence trick or hoax, orig. to practise a short-change swindle.

1887		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 24 Dec. 12/2: ‘Are you quick at flim-flamming?’ ‘Can you work shells?’.
1896		S. Crane George’s Mother (2001) 86: Then he made a modest gesture, the protest of a humble man. ‘Don’t flim-flam me, ol’boy,’ he said.
1904		Sunderland Dly Echo 11 Apr. 5/3: An echo, my son, [...] ios the only thing that can flim-flam a woman out of the last word.
1909		I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 220: If the victim finds he is flim-flammed and complains, the waiter will again take the money, count it, make good the deficiency, and in returning it will again extract the bottom bill.
1913		Van Loan ‘Will a Duck Swim?’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 258: How do you know he did n’t flimflam you, and sell you a duck that can’t swim.
1924		D. Hammett ‘The Tenth Clew’ in Continental Op (1975) 21: Emil Bonfils [...] was flimflammed out of something by Gatvoort in Paris.
1938		J.E. O’Donnell ‘Overcoat Bennie’ in Mss. from the Federal Writers’ Project 🌐 What a cheater he was! He cheated everybody with whom he came in contact, pawnbrokers, crooks and clients. ‘Flim-flam others or they will flim-flam you,’ was his motto.
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 40: A pretty dod gasted ding-whanged, flim-flammin set of thieves, rogues and vagabones.
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 141: The transaction was a bald swindle. Mynheer Peter was flimflammed.
1955		Mad mag. May 7: We been flim-flammed!
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 79: They’ll cut you loose like a trick after they’ve flim-flammed you.
1972		N. Algren ‘The Last Carousel’ Texas Stories (1995) 140: They’d sheared the rubes and flapped the jays, flimflammed them at the jam auctions and suckered them at three-card monte.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 181: Third place, you ain’t walked since Judas flimflammed Jesus fuckin Christ!
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 202: I know he would flim-flam. He would talk his way out of anything.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 52: I don’t need to flimflam you with examples of how a comparative deal with a major might work, because there is no comparison.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 202: A gun who’d flim-flammed widows out of their pension money.

2. (US und.) to manipulate an item, e.g. to exchange one thing for another, during a criminal trick.

1900

Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 Feb. 3/2: The operator flim-flams the envelope [...] that is to say he exchanges it for another.

3. to perform a task inadequately.

1908

‘O. Henry’ ‘The Ethics of Pig’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 229: You flimflammed in your part of the work to-night and put the game on crutches.

4. (US Und.) to scold, to berate.

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1934		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 8 Nov. [synd. col.] The rosy fellows, all sweetness and light [...] All the flim-flamming I’ve suffered has been by their ilk.