Also (in sense 4) 9 flair. [f. FLARE v. Not in Johnson or Todd.]
1. The action or quality of flaring, or giving forth a dazzling and unsteady light; dazzling but irregular light, like that of torches; a sudden outburst of flame. Also fig. Obtrusive display, ostentation.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, I. xxviii.
| And, lighted by the torches’ flare, | |
| That seaward flung their smoky glare, | |
| The younger knight that maiden bare | |
| Half lifeless up the rock. |
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev. (1857), I. I. III. viii. 80. Tramp as of armed men, foot and horse; Gardes Françaises, Gardes Suisses: marching hither; in silent regularity; in the flare of torchlight!
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xix. This, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object—to walk with you through the Fair, to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
1888. Pall Mall G., 6 Sept., 8/2. Flares of dazzling crimson and purple shot up from the mouth of the crater.
1888. Scientific American, N. S., LVIII. 14 Jan., 21/1. Too modest for business push and flare, he kept in the background while others gained by his labor; too unselfish to look after paying business, he “wasted,” as it may perhaps be termed, time on the scientific interests of others—time and effort which might have been turned to his own profit.
2. a. Naut. = FLARE-UP 3. b. A combustible made to be burnt as a night-signal at sea, and formerly as a railway fog-signal.
1883. W. C. Russell, Sailor’s Lang., Flare.—A light made by firing a tar-barrel, &c.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 41. Boat Launching Flare.
1885. Law Times Rep., LIII. 60/1. The I.C.U. … burnt flares over her quarter.
1887. Pall Mall G., 10 Jan. ‘Flares’ were burned for the purpose of warning the drivers of trains.
1889. W. Rye, Cromer, 10. The platform where ‘flares’ are burned sometimes to warn mariners on bad nights, sometimes to pass on the beacon light along the coast.
3. Photogr. See quot. 1868. Also, a similar appearance in the object-glass of a telescope.
1868. Lea, Photogr., 88. Flare or ghost in the camera is an indistinct image of the diaphragm.
1878. Lockyer, Stargazing, II. xi. 140. A ‘flare’ appearing, shows a want of a slight alteration of the setting screw, on the same side of the object-glass as the ‘flare’ or elongation appears.
4. Ship-build. Gradual swell or bulging outwards and upwards. Cf. FLARE v. 4.
1833. T. Richardson, Merc. Marine Archit., 1. To give them more flair in the stem-head.
1882. Sir R. Payne Gallwey, Fowler in Irel., ii. 25. The sides are nearly upright with little flare, the stem, stern, and plank all round being nine to ten inches high.
5. attrib. and Comb., as flare-light; also flare-lamp, a lamp with an unprotected flame; flare-spot (= sense 3); flare-tin, a tin vessel in which powder or other combustible material is burnt as a signal at sea.
1891. R. Kipling, City Dreadf. Nt., 83. Good for us that we don’t know what fire-damp is here. We can use the *flare-lamps.
1894. Westm. Gaz., 1 Dec., 6/3. A *flare light was observed from the barque.
1893. Abney, Photogr., xxxi. (ed. 8), 219. A *‘flare spot,’ which is a circular patch of light seen on the ground-glass immediately in a line with the axis of the lens.
1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, III. xiii. There was a *flare-tin aboard, and from time to time we burnt this over the rail, the turpentine making a great glare that illuminated the brig from the eyes to the taffrail; and the light was so strong that every time it burnt itself out it left our sight useless for a spell, and the night seemed as black as thunder till the white foam showed again, and we saw the island like a lump of indigo down to leeward.
