a. [ad. L. flagrant-em, pr. pple. of flagrāre to burn, f. root flāg-, Aryan bhleg- to blaze.]
1. lit. Blazing, burning, flaming, glowing, arch.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, II. 334. Torches were caried on eche syde flagrant.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., VIII. 161.
| His mother snatcht it with an hasty hand | |
| Out of the fire, and quencht the flagrant brand. |
1692. R. L’Estrange, Josephus’ Antiq., IV. iv. (1733), 82. It [a Fire] was clear and flagrant.
1814. Southey, Roderick, v. 10.
| Entering an inn, he took his humble seat | |
| With other travellers round the crackling hearth, | |
| Where heath and cistus gave their flagrant flame. |
1856. T. Aird, Poet. Wks., 352, A Mother’s Blessing.
| Big drops of rain fell scattered; forthwith burst | |
| The flagrant lightnings and deep-bellied thunder. |
† b. Of a fluid: Fiery, hot. Hence, In flagrant blood, opp. to in cold blood. Obs.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, III. 73. The Lacedæmonians very slow in their deliberations, full of gravity, but very resolute, and such as would in cold Bloud perform what the Athenians did usually in flagrant.
1676. Beal, in Phil. Trans., XI. 588. More sober allayers of thirst, than their Flagrant kill devil.
c. fig.
1627–77. Feltham, Resolves, II. xlvi. 249. They, who to others seemed flagrant in their tongues, had Ice congealed in their frozen hearts: which need not put us to the wonder, when we find their practick zeal fall many degrees below their flaming harangues.
1634. Herbert, Trav., 108. That fable of the Wolfe who drinking at the spring-head, quarrelled with the silly Lambe for troubling his draught by quenching his flagrant thirst at the stream below.
1822–56. De Quincey, Confess. (1862), 132. Flagrant health, health boiling over in fiery rapture, which ran along, side by side, with exercise on this scale, whilst all the while from morning to night I was inhaling mountain air, soon passed into a hateful scourge.
2. a. Of war: Raging; actually in progress. b. In flagrant delict (= L. flagrante delicto): in the very act. rare.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), III. 157. There hardly occurs an example of any one being notoriously put to death without form of trial, except in moments of flagrant civil war.
1864. Palfrey, History of New England, I. 492. A war with the most powerful of the native tribes was flagrant, a war which might probably bring about a universal league of the New-England savages.
1872. E. W. Robertson, Historical Essays, 137. When an offender was taken in flagrant delict, the case might be dealt with summarily.
† 3. Of feelings, passions, etc. (rarely of persons): Ardent, burning, intensely eager or earnest. Obs.
1515. Barclay, Egloges, iv. (1570), C v/4.
| By flagrant ardour inflamed in suche cas | |
| As in tyme past the olde kyng Mydas was. |
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xxxix. (1611), 262. A thing which filleth the minde with comfort and heauenly delight, stirreth vp flagrant desires and affections correspondent vnto that which the words conteyne.
1675. Marvell, Corr., ccxlix. (1872–5), II. 467. Strangways, a flagrant churchman, made privy counsellor.
1708. Ozell, trans. Boileau’s Lutrin, iv. 62.
| Give Energy to my Enervate Tongue, | |
| While the fir’d Chanter’s flagrant Rage is sung. |
1784. Cowper, Task, III. 794.
| He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal | |
| To serve his country. |
4. In occasional uses referring to the visible aspect of flame. † a. Resplendent, glorious. Obs.
a. 1500[?]. York Myst., Innholders, 39. O flagraunt fader! graunte yt myght so be!
† b. Burning red from a flogging. Obs.
1718. Prior, Henry & Emma, 451.
| Their common Loves, a lewd abandon’d Pack, | |
| The Beadle’s Lash still flagrant on their Back. |
1728. Pope, The Dunciad, II. 147.
| Earless on high, stodd unabash’d De Foe, | |
| And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below. |
1812. Southey, Lett. (1856), II. 264. Half the Anglo-American went over red-hot from the conventicle, the other half flagrant from Bridewell.
c. 1838. De Quincey, Shakspeare, Wks. 1863, XII. 57. Is it to be imagined that an enemy, searching with the diligence of malice for matter against Shakspeare, should have failed, six years after the event, to hear of that very memorable disgrace which had exiled him from Stratford, and was the very occasion of his first resorting to London; or that a leading company of players in the metropolis, one of whom, and a chief one, was his own townsman, should cheerfully adopt into their society, as an honoured partner, a young man yet flagrant from the lash of the executioner or the beadle?
c. Flaring, gaudy.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), II. VI. III. 164. A highgoing, tacitly obstinate old Dowager (who dresses, if I recollect, in flagrant colours).
5. Of an offence, crime, etc.; also of an offender: Glaring, notorious, scandalous, ‘flaming into notice’ (J.).
1706. De Foe, Jure Div., Pref. 25. The constant Enormities committed by such flagrant Wretches as God for the Execution of his Judgments sometimes thinks fit to suffer on the Thrones of Power.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 430, 14 July, ¶ 3. The Fault I speak of was so very flagrant.
1746. Smollett, Reproof, 95.
| Friend. There needs no magic to divine your | |
| Mark’d as you are a flagrant misanthrope. |
1771. Fletcher, Checks, Wks. 1795, II. 260. Many individuals of David’s royal family, such as Absalom and Amnon, were cut off on account of their flagrant wickedness.
1824. Dibdin, Libr. Comp., II. 746. Ney, who was a bluff, brave soldier, an indifferent General, and a flagrant traitor, is honoured with a parainetical Ode!
1838. Thirlwall, Greece, II. xi. 22–3. They had been guilty of a flagrant violation of religion; and Megacles and his whole house were viewed with horror, as men polluted with the stain of sacrilege.
1893. F. Hall, in The Nation (N.Y.), 24 Aug., LVII. 142/2. Nor, to pass to Professor Schele de Vere, are his errors less numerous or less flagrant than those of Mr. Bartlett, from whom not a few of them seem to be credulously adopted.
† 6. = FRAGRANT. Obs.
[The L. vbs. flagrare and fragrare were often confused in MSS.; cf. F. flairer to smell, which in form represents the former. The last quot., however, is burlesque.]
1450. Political Poems (Rolls), II. 232.
| In the monethe of May, when gresse groweth grene, | |
| Flagrant in her floures, with swete savour. |
c. 1530. Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814), 376. In the flagraunt odour therof, bothe the body & the herte is reioysed.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Knt. Burning Pestle, IV. v.
| For now the flagrant Flowers do spring and sprout in semely sort, | |
| The little Birds do sit and Sing, the Lambs do make fine sport. |
Hence Flagrantness.
1727. in Bailey, vol. II.
