flash

verb

1. (transitive)To cause to shine briefly or intermittently.

   “He flashed the light at the water, trying to see what made the noise.”

2. (intransitive)To blink; to shine or illuminate intermittently.

   “The light flashed on and off.”

   “Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed—her cheek crimsoned.”

   “Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.”

3. (intransitive)To be visible briefly.

   “The scenery flashed by quickly.”

   “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. (transitive)To make visible briefly.

   “A number will be flashed on the screen.”

   “The special agents flashed their badges as they entered the building.”

   “She flashed me a smile from the car window.”

   “Today, people are taking to the street once again. Clad in face masks, and flashing the three-fingered Hunger Games salute to the sound of Thai rap, thousands of protesters have thronged the capital over recent months, demanding political reform of a military-backed government seen as bungling and corrupt.”

5. (ambitransitive, informal)To expose one's intimate body part or undergarment, often momentarily and unintentionally. (Contrast streak.)

   “She flashed a vocalist at a rock concert.”

   “Her skirt was so short that she flashed her underpants as she was getting out of her car.”

6. (figuratively)To break forth like a sudden flood of light; to show a momentary brilliance.

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “The Isabella [Isabella, or the Pot of Basil], then, is a perfect treasure-house of graceful and felicitous words and images: almost in every stanza there occurs one of those vivid and picturesque turns of expression, by which the object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind, and which thrill the reader with a sudden delight.”

7. To flaunt; to display in a showy manner.

   “He flashed a wad of hundred-dollar bills.”

8. To communicate quickly.

   “The news services flashed the news about the end of the war to all corners of the globe.”

   “to flash a message along the telephone wires;  to flash conviction on the mind”

9. To move, or cause to move, suddenly.

   “Flash forward to the present day.”

   “⁠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: […]”

   “But they survived some real pressure as David Murphy flashed a header inches wide of Rob Green's right-hand post[…].”

10. (dated, transitive)To telephone a person, only allowing the phone to ring once, in order to request a call back.

    “Susan flashed Jessica, and then Jessica called her back, because Susan didn't have enough credit on her phone to make the call.”

11. (intransitive)To evaporate suddenly. (See flash evaporation.)
12. (transitive)To climb (a route) successfully on the first attempt.
13. (transitive)To write to the memory of (an updatable component such as a BIOS chip or games cartridge).

    “In order to flash a custom ROM to a phone, the boot loader must be unlocked first.”

14. (transitive)To cover with a thin layer, as objects of glass with glass of a different colour.
15. (transitive)To expand (blown glass) into a disc.
16. (transitive)To send by some startling or sudden means.
17. (intransitive)To burst out into violence.
18. To perform a flash.
19. To release the pressure from a pressurized vessel.
20. (obsolete, transitive)To trick up in a showy manner.

    “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: […]”

21. (obsolete, transitive)To strike and throw up large bodies of water from the surface; to splash.

    “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.”

22. To flash back.

    “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?"”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A sudden, short, temporary burst of light.

   “Between 8 and 9 p.m., the recorder at a meteorological station at Harrow, Middlesex, picked up 1,470 lightning flashes within a radius of 10 to 15 miles, and observers at the station described the storm as "probably one of the most spectacular of the century."”

2. (countable, uncountable)A very short amount of time.

   “[F]or Empire and Greatneſs it importeth moſt, that a Nation do profeſs Arms as their principal Honour, Study and Occupation: […] The Fabrick of the State of Sparta was wholly (though not wiſely) framed and compoſed to that Scope and End. The Perſians and Macedonians had it for a flaſh. The Galls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and others had it for a time.”

   “Quick—something must be done! done in a flash, too! But the very imminence of the emergency paralyzed his invention.”

3. (US, colloquial, countable, uncountable)A flashlight; an electric torch.

   “I reached a flash out of my car pocket and went down-grade and looked at the car.”

4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A sudden and brilliant burst, as of genius or wit.

   “[B]reath his faults ſo quaintly, / That they may ſeeme the taints of liberty; / The flaſh and out-breake of a fiery minde, / A ſauagenes in vnreclaim'd bloud of generall aſſault.”

   “I cannot learn that he [Patrick Henry] gave, in his youth, any evidence of that precocity which sometimes distinguishes uncommon genius. His companions recollect no instance of premature wit, no striking sentiment, no flash of fancy, no remarkable beauty or strength of expression; and no indication, however slight, either of that impassioned love of liberty, or of that adventurous daring and intrepidity, which marked, so strongly, his future character.”

   “Fabio Capello insisted [Wayne] Rooney was in the right frame of mind to play in stormy Podgorica despite his father's arrest on Thursday in a probe into alleged betting irregularities, but his flash of temper – when he kicked out at Miodrag Dzudovic – suggested otherwise.”

5. (figuratively, uncountable)Pizzazz, razzle-dazzle.

   “Above all, they hate flash. Just as the English working class has always been, they are fiercely puritanical and abhor all forms of display.”

   “Another pleasant surprise of She-Devil is director Susan Seidelman's infusion of political moxie into the movie, a departure from her tendency to dish out lots of flash with little substance.”

   “The ATF sound was lacking in extended solos, flash, and pomposity, but CBS liked the group's respect for traditional Anglo-rock, their Beatles-like energy, and the splashes of Yes, Genesis, and 10cc that colored their music.”

6. (countable, uncountable)Material left around the edge of a moulded part at the parting line of the mould.
7. (British, Cockney, countable, uncountable)The strips of bright cloth or buttons worn around the collars of market traders.
8. (countable, uncountable)A pattern where each prop is thrown and caught only once.
9. (countable, uncountable)A language, created by a minority to maintain cultural identity, that cannot be understood by the ruling class.
10. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, countable, uncountable)Clipping of camera flash (“a device used to produce a flash of artificial light to help illuminate a scene”).
11. (archaic, countable, uncountable)A preparation of capsicum, burnt sugar, etc., for colouring liquor to make it look stronger.
12. (countable, uncountable)A form of military insignia.

    “I just got my first commando flash.”

13. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, uncountable)Clipping of flash memory.

    “The hybrid drive has 500 gigabytes of hard disk space for bulk storage and 2 gigabytes of high-speed flash for caching frequently-accessed files.”

14. (countable, uncountable)Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Artipe, Deudorix and Rapala.
15. (countable, uncountable)A tattoo flash (example design on paper to give an idea of a possible tattoo).
16. (countable, uncountable)The sudden sensation of being "high" after taking a recreational drug.

    “At three-thirty that afternoon Max, Tom, and Sharon placed tabs under their tongues and sat together in the living room to wait for the flash.”

    “A few seconds following the injection, the user experiences a sudden, intense generalized sensation which has both physiological and psychological characteristics. […] pure, commercially produced products do not give a good flash […]”

    “The flash — the odd combination of a cocoon-comfort and an inexplicable physical ascendency to a "high" — provides the major incentive for the new experimenter to move to the next phase of his career.”

17. (countable, uncountable)Synonym of flashback (“recurrence of the effects of a hallucinogenic drug”).

    “I'd heard about LSD and wanted to try it early on, but I'd also heard of delayed reactions, called acid flashes, brought on by unexpected stimuli; they could prove fatally disorienting.”

18. (countable, dated, uncountable)A newsflash.

    “The United Press got the flash "Germans declare martial law in Ruhr" […]”

19. (countable, uncountable)A brief exposure or making visible (of a smile, badge, etc).

    “I didn't need them anymore. The police badge worked like a dream with both Alice and Kerry. One quick flash of the badge, and they were in the car and out of the rain. No questions asked.”

    “Gabriel grabbed her wrist and spun her around, stepping forward right in her face, showing a brief flash of fangs this time. “Not good enough. I can haul you over my shoulder if that's the way it has to be.” “I'd almost like to see you[…]”

    “She ended the question with a flash of a smile that took more energy than she'd ever thought a mere smile could.”

20. (countable, uncountable)The (intentional or unintentional) exposure of an intimate body part or undergarment in public.

    “panty flash”

    “[…] the answer came to her. Camera flashes. That strobing light had been the flash of a camera. Icy panic poured through her body. She had a vision of Janet Jackson's boob flash at the Super Bowl;[…]”

    ““Would you like a boob flash?” Hundred token tips began to flow in. “Thanks guys, and she read off the user names. That deserves more than just a flash.” She pulled up the hem of her top and turned left and right giving them a great show[…]”

21. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable)Ellipsis of hook flash.
22. A pool of water, in some areas especially one that is marshy, and/or one formed by subsidence of the ground due to mining. (Compare flush (“marsh; pool”).)

    “their hearts lie lumpish as a Log that lies in a flash of water seven years together”

    “The […] woods, commons, ponds, 'flashes,' bogs, 'damp spots,' and ditches are, when the number and rarity of some of the species are taken into account, the richest botanical ground in Lincolnshire;”

    “It includes deep holes, wet and dry, and the hill-and-dale formations left by the mechanical excavation of sand, gravel, clay, ironstone and other surface-worked minerals; the heaps of shale, waste products and fuel ash resulting from deep mining, manufacturing and the generation of electric power; the flashes, swamps and hollows caused by mining subsidence; the hill-side scars made by chalk, limestone and hardrock quarrying; and the ruins of abandoned industrial buildings.”

    “In breeding season the important [...] sites are distributed along the Dearne and Don on the flashes, marshes, ponds and oxbows, in the carrs around Doncaster, and the flooded gravel pits at Blaxton, Finningley, Sutton and Lound (see fig. 3).”

    “A saline coastal lagoon, up to 3m deep, behind a sand bar, with brackish marshes (flashes) and mangrove swamps. The lagoon has now been permanently opened to the sea.”

23. A reservoir and sluiceway beside a navigable stream, just above a shoal, so that the stream may pour in water as boats pass, and thus bear them over the shoal.

adj

1. (Australia, British, New-Zealand, slang)Expensive-looking and demanding attention; stylish; showy.

   “The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are, He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;”

2. (UK)Having plenty of ready money.
3. (UK)Liable to show off expensive possessions or money.

   “Bit of a flash git, don't you think?”

4. (US, slang)Occurring very rapidly, almost instantaneously.
5. (obsolete, slang)Relating to thieves and vagabonds.

   “the flash language: thieves' cant or slang”

   “flash notes: counterfeit banknotes”

   “Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny?”

name

1. A multimedia platform, most often used for adding animation and interactivity to webpages.

   “Your Web site doesn't have to be full of the latest dropdowns, rollovers, superslick graphics, or Flash videos.”

   “Flash games are ever so popular on the Web. As the capabilities of the Flash Player continue to improve, better and more powerful games can be built.”

2. Any of various DC Comics superheroes who have the power of superspeed, derived from an energy called the Speed Force.