Word: flash Part of Speech: verb Etymology: In some senses, from Middle English flasshen, a variant of flasken, flaskien (“to sprinkle, splash”), which was likely of imitative origin; in other senses probably of North Germanic origin akin to Swedish dialectal flasa (“to burn brightly, blaze”), related to flare. Compare also Icelandic flasa (“to rush, go hastily”). Pronunciation: /flæʃ/ 1. To cause to shine briefly or intermittently. Labels: transitive Example: He flashed the light at the water, trying to see what made the noise. 2. To blink; to shine or illuminate intermittently. Labels: intransitive Example: The light flashed on and off. Example: Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed—her cheek crimsoned. 3. To be visible briefly. Labels: intransitive Example: The scenery flashed by quickly. Example: Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands. 4. To make visible briefly. Labels: transitive Example: A number will be flashed on the screen. Example: The special agents flashed their badges as they entered the building. 5. To expose one's intimate body part or undergarment, often momentarily and unintentionally. (Contrast streak.) Labels: ambitransitive, informal Example: She flashed a vocalist at a rock concert. Example: Her skirt was so short that she flashed her underpants as she was getting out of her car. 6. To break forth like a sudden flood of light; to show a momentary brilliance. Labels: figuratively Example: For although party's worn-out moulds have been shivered, and names which have flashed and thundered as the watchwords of unnumbered struggles for power are now fast waning into history, it is too much to hope, perhaps to desire, until the education of mankind shall more nearly approach its completion, that strong differences of opinion and feeling should cease to agitate the scenes on which freemen are called to discharge political duties. Example: But while he jested thus, / A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act. / Remembering how we three presented Maid, / Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, / In masque or pageant at my father's court. 7. To flaunt; to display in a showy manner. Example: He flashed a wad of hundred-dollar bills. 8. To flaunt; to display in a showy manner. Example: I knew he was serious when he flashed a Bloods sign. 9. To communicate quickly. Example: The news services flashed the news about the end of the war to all corners of the globe. Example: to flash a message along the telephone wires; to flash conviction on the mind 10. To move, or cause to move, suddenly. Example: Flash forward to the present day. Example: ⁠Deep folly! yet that this could be— ⁠That I could wing my will with might ⁠To leap the grades of life and light, And flash at once, my friend, to thee: […] 11. To telephone a person, only allowing the phone to ring once, in order to request a call back. Labels: dated, transitive Example: Susan flashed Jessica, and then Jessica called her back, because Susan didn't have enough credit on her phone to make the call. 12. To evaporate suddenly. (See flash evaporation.) Labels: intransitive 13. To climb (a route) successfully on the first attempt. Labels: transitive 14. To write to the memory of (an updatable component such as a BIOS chip or games cartridge). Labels: transitive Example: In order to flash a custom ROM to a phone, the boot loader must be unlocked first. 15. To cover with a thin layer, as objects of glass with glass of a different colour. Labels: transitive 16. To expand (blown glass) into a disc. Labels: transitive 17. To send by some startling or sudden means. Labels: transitive 18. To burst out into violence. Labels: intransitive 19. To perform a flash. 20. To release the pressure from a pressurized vessel. 21. To trick up in a showy manner. Labels: obsolete, transitive Example: Oft have I ſeaſoned ſavory periods / With ſugar'd words, to delude Guſtus' taſte, / And oft embelliſh'd my entreative phraſe, / Limning and flaſhing it with various dyes, / To draw proud Viſus to me by the eyes: […] 22. To strike and throw up large bodies of water from the surface; to splash. Labels: obsolete, transitive Example: The varlet ſaw, when to the flood he came, / How without ſtop or ſtay he fiercely lept, / And deep himſelfe beducked in the ſame, / That in the lake his loftie creſt was ſteept, / Ne of his ſafetie ſeemed care he kept, / But with his raging armes he rudely flaſhd / The waves about, and all his armour ſwept, / That all the bloud and filth away was waſht, / Yet ſtill he bet the water, and the billows daſht. 23. To flash back. Example: Kevin, one of the first buddies in Boston lies calmly, very thin in the casket. I think of his face angrily making a point at a meeting or happily hosting his Christmas party. I flash to my father's wake and the "well-meaning" people who whispered about how awful he looked as I stood by watching, wanting to scream "What did you expect?"