Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 3 [of 7] : $b A dictionary, historical and comparative, of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc.Henley, William Ernest
History
Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 3 [of 7] : $b A dictionary, historical and comparative, of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc.
Henley, William Ernest
English language -- Slang -- Dictionaries; Slang -- Dictionaries
2. (Also Flunk-out).—A failure, especially (at college) in recitations;
a backing out of undertakings.
1853. Songs of Yale. In moody meditation sunk, Reflecting on my
future flunk.
1877. Brunonian, 24th Feb. A flunk is a complete fizzle; and a dead
flunk is where one refuses to get out of his seat.
1888. Missouri Republican, 11th Feb. Riddleberger forced the
presidential possibilities of the senate to a complete flunk.
Verb. (American).—To retire through fear; to fail (as in a lesson); to
cause to fail. Cf., Funk.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, IV. Why, little ’un, you must be
cracked, if you flunk out before we begin.
1847. The Yale Banger, 22 Oct. My dignity is outraged at beholding
those who fizzle and flunk in my presence tower above me.
1853. Amherst Indicator, p. 253. They know that a man who has
flunked, because too much of a genius to get his lesson, is not in
a state to appreciate joking.
1871. John Hay, ‘Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell,’ in New York
Tribune, Jan. But he never flunked, and he never lied, I reckon he
never know’d how.
Flunkey, subs. (nautical).—1. A ship’s steward.
2. (American.)—An ignorant dabbler in stock; an inexperienced jobber.
1862. A Week in Wall St., p. 90. A broker, who had met with heavy
losses, exclaimed: ‘I’m in a bear-trap,—this won’t do. The dogs
will come over me. I shall be mulct in a loss. But I’ve got time;
I’ll turn the scale; I’ll help the bulls operate for a rise, and
draw in the flunkies.’
3. (American University.)—One that makes a complete failure in a
recitation; one who flunks (q.v.).
1859. Yale Lit. Magazine. I bore him safe through Horace, Saved him
from the flunkey’s doom.
4. (colloquial).—A man-servant, especially one in livery. Hence, by
implication, a parasite or Toady (q.v.). Fr., un larbin.
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs; ch. v. You who have no toadies; you
whom no cringing flunkeys or shopmen bow out of doors.
Whence, Flunkeyism = Blind worship of rank, birth, or riches. Fr., la
larbinerie.
1857. J. E. Ritchie, Night Side of London, p. 23. Our trading
classes, becoming richer and more sunk in flunkeyism every day.
Flurryment, subs. (common.)—Agitation; bustle; confusion; nervous
excitement. [Pleonastic, from Flurry.]
1848. Jones, Sketches of Travel, p. II. Mary and all on em was in a
monstrous flurryment.
Flurry One’s Milk, verb. phr. (common).—To be worried, angry, or upset;
To fret one’s kidneys (q.v.); To tear one’s shirt, or one’s hair
(q.v.).
Flush, subs. (gamesters’).—A hand of one suit.
Adj. (colloquial).—1. With plenty of money; the reverse of hard up
(q.v.); warm (q.v.). Also abounding in anything: e.g. flush of his
patter = full of his talk; flush of the lotion = liberal with the
drink; flush of his notions = prodigal of ideas; flush of her charms =
lavish of her person; and so forth.
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