Dictionary

flashman en · NOUN

Etymology

From flash + -man.

Meanings

1. A slick salesman or spin doctor.
   • A flashman just naturally tried to promote and show- off his company at every opportunity. Wasn't that what sales-PR was all about? Even the police departments engaged flashmen. 1988, Amazing Stories:
   • "They're all Los Angeles flashmen running this thing. Joe McDonald told anyone who'd listen that they're just a bunch of sleazebags opposed to everything we stand for, dragging show biz into it, and he was right." 2009, Patricia Morrison, California Screamin, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 90:
2. (obsolete) A pimp.
   • Are not your favourite friends horn-boys and flashmen — 1818, William Hone, “Interview with Marquiz Boudoir”, in The Three Trials of William Hone, for Publishing Three Parodies: Viz. the Late John Wilkes's Catechism, the Political Litany, and the Sinecurist's Creed; on Three Ex-officit Informations, page 56:
   • While loud her flashman cries, 'Arise, my ladybird, arise!' 1823, Jon Bee, Diet, of the Turf, etc., page 80:
   • He now had a country seat at Kilmacud and women procured for him by a flashman. 1998, Padraic O'Farrell, The '98 Reader, →ISBN:
3. (obsolete) A woman's boyfriend.
   • c. 1833, Broadside Ballad, "My flashman has gone to sea". My flashman he's a Yankee, with his hair cut short behind
   • Her flashman, in her estimation, is ten times handsomer, certainly more acceptable. 1819, London, The London Guide, and Stranger's Safeguard, Etc. (Second Edition.)., page 125:
4. (obsolete) Someone who distracts the target of a thief; a confidence trickster.
   • By not knowing it: the fellow's manners are so plausible and even insinuating, his appearance so gentlemanly, his voice so winning, that I suffered him to cheat me at Newmarket in the sale of a spavined horse, a regular screw, on the strength of which he claimed my acquaintance ; but as soon as I twigged that he was a flashman — one of the swell mob, I mizzled — gave him the cut direct. 1843, Horace Smith, Adam Brown, the merchant. By the author of Brambletye house, page 173:
   • "Stop your jaw, or I'll stop it for you, and teach you another time to know a gentleman from a flashman." 1841, Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, page 186:
   • He shared the fate of most country bumpkins on arriving at the metropolis, and was quickly robbed by a flashman, who claimed acquaintance with him and cleared out his fob 1912, Peter Hampson Ditchfield, The old English country squire, page 260

Forms