flash

English Online Dictionary. What means flash‎? What does flash mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: flăsh, IPA^(key): /flæʃ/
• Rhymes: -æʃ

Etymology 1

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”).

Verb

flash (third-person singular simple present flashes, present participle flashing, simple past and past participle flashed)

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

2. (intransitive) To blink; to shine or illuminate intermittently.
3. (intransitive) To be visible briefly.
4. (transitive) To make visible briefly.
5. (ambitransitive, informal) To expose one's intimate body part or undergarment, often momentarily and unintentionally. (Contrast streak.)

6. (figurative) To break forth like a sudden flood of light; to show a momentary brilliance.
7. To flaunt; to display in a showy manner.

8. To communicate quickly.

9. To move, or cause to move, suddenly.
10. (transitive) To telephone a person, only allowing the phone to ring once, in order to request a call back.

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

14. (transitive, glassmaking) To cover with a thin layer, as objects of glass with glass of a different colour.
15. (transitive, glassmaking) 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. (juggling) To perform a flash.
19. (metallurgy) To release the pressure from a pressurized vessel.
20. (transitive, obsolete) To trick up in a showy manner.
21. (transitive, obsolete) To strike and throw up large bodies of water from the surface; to splash.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. Disposed into Twelue Books, Fashioning XII. Morall Vertues, London: Printed for W[illiam] Ponsonbie, OCLC 18024649, book II, canto VI, stanza XLII; republished as The Faerie Queene. By Edmund Spenser. With an Exact Collation of the Two Original Editions, Published by Himself at London in Quarto; the Former Containing the First Three Books Printed in 1590, and the Latter the Six Books in 1596. To which are Now Added, a New Life of the Author, and also a Glossary. Adorn'd with Thirty-two Copper-Plates, from the Original Drawings of the late W. Kent, Esq.; Architect and Principal Painter to His Majesty, volume I, London: Printed for J. Brindley, in New Bond-Street, and S. Wright, Clerk of His Majesty's Works, at Hampton-Court, 1751, OCLC 642577152, page 316:

      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.

Synonyms

• (to briefly illuminate): glint
• (telephoning): beep

Derived terms

Related terms

• flush (possibly)

Translations

See also

• gleam
• (to expose one's naked body or underwear): wardrobe malfunction

Noun

flash (countable and uncountable, plural flashes)

1. A sudden, short, temporary burst of light.

   Synonyms: gleam, glint

   Hypernym: light

2. A very short amount of time.

   Synonyms: instant, jiffy, twinkle; see also Thesaurus:moment

   Antonyms: aeon, spell; see also Thesaurus:eon
3. (colloquial, US) A flashlight; an electric torch.
   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, OCLC 747046957; republished London: Penguin Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0-241-95628-1, page 34:

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

4. (figuratively) A sudden and brilliant burst, as of genius or wit.
5. (figurative, uncountable) Pizzazz, razzle-dazzle.

   Synonyms: elan, flair
6. Material left around the edge of a moulded part at the parting line of the mould.

   Synonyms: moulding flash, molding flash

7. (British, Cockney) The strips of bright cloth or buttons worn around the collars of market traders.
9. (juggling) A pattern where each prop is thrown and caught only once.
10. (linguistics) A language, created by a minority to maintain cultural identity, that cannot be understood by the ruling class.
12. (photography) Clipping of camera flash (“a device used to produce a flash of artificial light to help illuminate a scene”).
13. (archaic) A preparation of capsicum, burnt sugar, etc., for colouring liquor to make it look stronger.
14. (military) A form of military insignia.

15. (computing, uncountable) Clipping of flash memory.

16. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Artipe, Deudorix and Rapala.
17. A tattoo flash (example design on paper to give an idea of a possible tattoo).
18. The sudden sensation of being "high" after taking a recreational drug.
19. Synonym of flashback (“recurrence of the effects of a hallucinogenic drug”)
20. (dated) A newsflash.
21. A brief exposure or making visible (of a smile, badge, etc).
22. The (intentional or unintentional) exposure of an intimate body part or undergarment in public.

    panty flash
23. (telecommunications) Short for hook flash.

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Catalan: flaix
• → Polish: flesz

Translations

See also

• glimmer
• shimmer
• sparkle
• twinkle

Adjective

flash (comparative more flash, superlative most flash)

1. (British, Australia and New Zealand, slang) Expensive-looking and demanding attention; stylish; showy.
2. (UK, of a person) Having plenty of ready money.
3. (UK, of a person) Liable to show off expensive possessions or money.
4. (US, slang) Occurring very rapidly, almost instantaneously.
5. (slang, obsolete) Relating to thieves and vagabonds.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “flash”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• For the sense ‘a short period of time’, the 1858 Notes and Queries of Martim de Albuquerque was consulted. From page 437 of the sixth volume of the second series, published in London by Bell & Dally, 186 Fleet Street, in 1858 :

  Ought we not to collect for posterity the various ways in which very short times are denoted. Besides the one at the head, there are, — in no time, in next to no time, in less than no time, in a trice, in a jiffy, in a brace of shakes, before you can say Jack Robinson, in a crack, in the squeezing of a lemon, in the doubling of your fist, in the twinkling of an eye, in a moment, in an instant, in a flash.

Etymology 2

From Middle English flashe, flaske, also found as flosche and flushe (whence modern English flosh and flush), used in Middle and modern English for bodies of water with varying emphasis on them being "pools" or "marshes". It is not entirely clear whether these constitute a single term with varied spellings, or have distinct etymologies. The form flash, flashe is often suggested to be from Old French flache, French flaque, which is of Germanic origin, akin to Middle Dutch vlacke (“an estuary, flats with stagnant pools”). See flush for more on that form.

Noun

flash (plural flashes)

1. 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”).)
2. (engineering) 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.

Derived terms

• flash wheel

References

Further reading

• flash on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• halfs

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English flash.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flɛʃ/

Noun

flash m (plural flashs)

1. flash (burst of light)
2. (photography) flash
3. newsflash
4. (juggling) flash

Derived terms

• flasher

Further reading

• “flash”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English flash.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈflɛʃ/^*
• Rhymes: -ɛʃ

Noun

flash m (invariable)

1. (photography) flash, camera flash
2. newsflash

Further reading

• flash in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English flash.

Noun

flash n (plural flash-uri)

1. flash

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English flash.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈflaʃ/ [ˈflaʃ]
• Rhymes: -aʃ
• Syllabification: flash

Noun

flash m (plural flashes)

1. (photography) flash

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “flash”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10