a. and sb. Also 8 flimsey, -zy. [First recorded in 18th c.; possibly (as Todd conjectured) an onomatopœic formation suggested by FILM. For the ending cf. tipsy, bumpsy; also limpsy, given by Webster as a U.S. synonym of flimsy.]
A. adj. 1. In physical sense: Destitute of strength or solidity; easily destroyed; slight, frail, unsubstantial.
1702. in Kersey.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Flimsy, limber, slight.
1728. J. Morgan, Algiers, I. iv. 141. The flesh [of the ostrich] is hard, black, and flimsy, especially the Thigh.
1780. Cowper, Progr. Err., 494.
| Hence comment after comment, spun as fine | |
| As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line. |
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, V. 27.
| Compelled, by its deformity, to screen | |
| With flimsy veil of justice and of right, | |
| Its unattractive lineaments. |
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, II. iv. There always comes a day when the roused public indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends its cowardly enemies a-flying.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. iii. 109. The jewels have remained after the flimsy embroidery in which they were fixed has fallen into decay.
† b. Of persons or their constitutions: Frail, ‘delicate.’ Obs.
1741–2. H. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann (1834), I. xviii. 61. I don’t want money, consequently no old women pay me or my wit: I have a very flimsy constitution, consequently the young women won’t taste my wit.
1753. Chesterf., Lett., cccxxxix. IV. 195. I have not yet quite got over my last violent attack, and am weak and flimsy.
2. In immaterial sense: Destitute of solid value, slight, trivial, paltry.
[1735. Pope, Prol. Sat., 93.
| Thron’d in the centre of his thin designs, | |
| Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!] |
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 201. However flimsey this title, and those of William Rufus and Stephen of Blois, may appear at this distance to us, after the law of descents hath now been settled for so many centuries, they were sufficient to puzzle the understandings of our brave, but unlettered ancestors.
1782. J. Warton, Ess. Pope (ed. 4), I. iii. 205. Walsh was in general a flimsy and frigid writer. The Rambler calls his works Pages of Inanity.
1830. Herschel, Stud. Nat. Phil., 109. It was the fault of that age, and of the perverse and flimsy style of verbal disputation which had infected all learning, rather than his [Aristotle’s] own, that he allowed himself to be contented with vague and loose notions drawn from general and vulgar observation, in place of seeking carefully, in well arranged and thoroughly considered instances, for the true laws of nature.
1845. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 21. This flimsy hypocrisy, by which he who was all-powerful sought to pass himself off as the victim of others’ injustice, inspired Gregory with a contempt which he could not dissemble.
1880. L. Stephen, Pope, vii. 171. A flimsy hypothesis learnt from Bolingbroke is not improved when overlaid with Pope’s conventional ornamentation.
absol. 1794. Godwin, Cal. Williams, 35. Choosing the flimsy before the substantial?
b. With reference to mental or moral attributes: Frivolous, trifling, superficial.
1827. Scott, Surg. Dau., xii. But it was thine, flimsy villain, to execute the device which a bolder genius planned: it was thine to entice the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence of a love which, on thy part, cold-blooded miscreant, never had existed.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women & B., II. ix. 195. Poor, flimsy, witty, wise, foolish, aristocratical, old-bachelor Horace Walpole, is shocked at his nephew marrying an actress who brought him good children, and at Lady Susan Fox’s running away with William O’Brien, ‘by nature formed to please.’
1853. Lynch, Self-Improv., iii. 66. Is not such a person paying more homage to God’s order of things, than the flimsy individual who has read fifty novels in a year, but nothing else?
B. sb.
1. slang. A bank-note; also, paper-money.
1824. P. Egan, Boxiana, IV. 443. Martin produced some ‘flimsies’; and said he would fight on Tuesday next.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Merch. Venice.
| In English Exchequer-bills full half a million, | |
| Not ‘kites,’ manufactured to cheat and inveigle, | |
| But the right sort of ‘flimsy,’ all sign’d, by Monteagle. |
1845. Alb. Smith, Fort. Scatterg. Fam., xxxii. (1887), 108. I’ll stand a five-pun’ flimsy for the piece.
2. A flimsy or thin kind of paper: esp. that used by reporters for the purpose of multiplying copies; hence, reporters’ ‘copy.’ Also attrib.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 30. Sub-editors are now hard at work cutting down ‘flimsy,’ ramming sheet of ‘copy’ on files, endlessly conferring with perspiring foremen.
1872. Besant & Rice, Ready-Money Mortiboy, xxiii. I’m afraid I shan’t have enough flimsy.
1892. Pall Mall G., 13 April, 6/3. The Post Office telegraph ‘flimsy’ messages … are now to be multiplied by means of the typewriter.
Hence Flimsy v. trans., to write on ‘flimsy.’
1886. Dally News, 17 July. Had the questions to be copied out?—Yes; and the answers to be flimsied.
