To flash it, or to flash one’s meat.—To expose the person. [Hence meat-flasher] (q.v.). Said usually of men. To flash the muzzle (old).—To produce a pistol. c. 1823. Ballad (quoted in Don Juan xi.). On the high toby spice flash the muzzle In spite of each gallows old scout. To flash it about, or to cut a flash or dash, verbal phr. (common).—To make a display; to live conspicuously and extravagantly. 1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 220. He flashed it about a good deal for a long time, going from one place to another. Sometimes he was a lord, at others an earl. To go flashing it, verb. phr. (venery).—To have sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride. Flash-Case (or -Crib, -House, -Drum, -Ken, -Panny, etc.).—1. A house frequented by thieves, as a tavern, lodging-house, fence (q.v.). 1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flash-ken, c., a house where thieves use, and are connived at. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. 1821. D. Haggart, Life, ‘Glossary,’ p. 172. Flash-kain, a house for receiving stolen goods. [Haggart’s spelling, being that of the respectable Edinburgh lawyer who took down his ‘confessions’ is generally misleading and inaccurate.] 1828. Smeeton, Doings in London, p. 39. It is a game in very great vogue among the macers, who congregate nightly at the flash-houses. 1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 50 (ed. 1854). There is one Peggy Lobkins who keeps a public house, a sort of flash-ken called ‘The Mug’ in Thames Court. 1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (ed. 1840), p. 271. I’ve been to all the flash-cases in town, and can hear nothing of him or his wives.... Ibid, p. 135. ‘The Black Lion!’ echoed Terence, ‘I know the house well; by the same token that it’s a flash-crib.’ 2. (common).—A brothel; a haunt of loose women. 1811. Lexicon Balatronicum (Flash song quoted under flash-panneys). Next for his favourite mot the kiddey looks about, And if she’s in a flash-panny he swears he’ll have her out; So he fences all his togs to buy her duds, and then He frisks his master’s lob to take her from the bawdy ken. 1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. (ed. 1840). You know how little I frequent flash-houses. 1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (ed. 1862), p. 380. Those troublesome swells, Who come from the play-houses, flash-kens, and hells. 1840. Macaulay, Essays: ‘Lord Clive.’ The lowest wretches that the company’s crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of London. 1852. Bristed, Upper Ten Thousand, p. 34. That is Mary Black who keeps the greatest flash house in Leonard Street. Flash-Cove (also Flash-Companion), subs. (common).—A thief; a sharper; a fence (q.v.). 1825. E. Kent, Modern Flash Dict. Flash-cove, the keeper of a place for the reception of stolen goods.