Also 7 flamm(e. [See FLAM v.]
A. sb.
† 1. A fanciful notion, caprice, whim. Obs.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Hum. Lieutenant, IV. i.
| With some new flam or other, nothing to the matter, | |
| And such a frown as would sink all before her, | |
| She takes her chamber. |
1672. Eachard, Hobbes’ State Nat., Lett. 20. It may be convenient for you to call this (as you do all that I say) a flam, a whisker, a Caprice, a piece of spight, malice, calumny and spleen.
† 2. A fanciful composition: a conceit. Obs.
a. 1637. B. Jonson, Underwoods, Execr. Vulcan, 36.
| Or pump’d for those hard trifles, Anagrams, | |
| Or Eteostics, or your finer flams | |
| Of eggs, and halberts, cradles, and a herse, | |
| A pair of scissars, and a comb in verse. |
1725. Swift, Lett. to Pope, Wks. 1761, VIII. xii. 46. Philips writes little flams (as Lord Leicester called those sort of verses) on Miss Carteret.
1755. Gray, Lett. to Wharton, 9 March. Must they too come out in the shape of little sixpenny flams, dropping one after another, till Mr. Dodsley thinks fit to collect them with Mr. this’s song, and Mr. t’other’s epigram, into a pretty volume!
3. A sham story, fabrication, falsehood; a piece of deception, a trick.
1632. Sherwood, A flam, or a flimflam take, riotle.
1637. Pocklington, Altare Chr., 22. The Lincolneshire Minister can devise no flamme (as he speaks) to shift off these, and other cleare places in Origen.
1655. Fuller, The Church-History of Britain, I. ii. § 9. 12. His Flamens and Arch-Flamens, seeme Flamms and Arch-Flamms, even notorious Falshoods.
1760. Foote, Minor, II. Wks. 1799, I. 257. Had the flam been fact, your behaviour was natural enought.
1826. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 5.
| That life has its pleasures—the rest is a sham, | |
| And all that comes after a flim and a flam! |
1888. D. C. Murray, Danger. Catspaw, 164. But outside that the letter’s a flam.
b. Humbug, deception; flattery, ‘blarney.’
1692. South, Conscience, Serm., 1737, II. xii. 443. All pretences to the contrary are nothing but cant and cheat, flam and delusion.
1825. Brockett, N. Country Wds., Flam, flattery bordering on a lie.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 367. ‘There are very few who take money; indeed they profess to take none at all. But that is all flam,’ said my informant.
1878. Cumbld. Gloss., Flam, flattery—equivalent to blarney.
† B. adj. [Developed from an attrib. use of the sb.; cf. FANCY C. adj.] That is intended to deceive; counterfeit, fictitious, sham. Obs.
1678–9. C. Hatton, 18 March, in Hatton Corr. (1878), I. 184. His Loppe has been impos’d on by a flamm report.
1692. Contriv. S. Blackhead, in Select. Harl. Misc. (1793), 516. To amuse him the more in his search, she addeth a flam story, that she had got his hand by corrupting one of the letter-carriers in London.
1692. R. L’Estrange, Josephus’ Antiq., XVI. vi. He could not so conveniently impose upon his Father with flam Stories against his Brothers, as when he was at his elbow.
Hence † Flam-flirt int. (cf. FLIM-FLAM-FLIRT), nonsense.
1590. R. W., 3 Lords & Ladies, B iij h. Fly, flam flurt: why? Can a flie doo hurt?
