1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xii. He was in the ‘Cave of Harmony,’ he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. 1871. Daily Telegraph, 8 June, ‘Paris in Convalescence.’ On this he flared up like a Commune conflagration, and cried out, ‘Shame, in the name of religion, art, and history!’ Flash, subs. (old).—1. The vulgar tongue; the lingo of thieves and their associates. To patter flash = to talk in thieves’ lingo. [The derivation of Flash, like that of French argot, is entirely speculative. It has, however, been generally referred to a district called Flash (the primary signification as a place name is not clear), between Buxton Leek and Macclesfield: there lived many chapmen who, says Dr. Aiken (“Description of Country round Manchester”), ‘were known as flash-men ... using a sort of slang or cant dialect.’] 1718. Hitchin. The Regulator of Thieves, etc., with Account of flash words, etc. (Title). 1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 69. Jigger, being cant or flash for door. 1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 25. With respect to that peculiar language called flash, or St. Jiles’ Greek, etc. 1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. viii. Here a tall gentleman marched up to him, and addressed him in a certain language, which might be called the freemasonry of flash. 1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 12. ‘What does he say?’ roared the long drover. ‘He says he don’t understand flash,’ replied the lady in gentleman’s attire. 1843–4. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg. His cheeks no longer drew the cash. Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash, He had overdrawn his badger. 1827. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. Pattered in flash like a covey knowing. 1864. Athenæum, 29 Oct. The northern village of ill-repute, and bearing that name (flash) gave to felonious high-flying the term flash. 1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 278. Why, when the late Lord Lytton wrote Pelham it was brought against him that ‘his knowledge of flash was evidently purely superficial.’ Flash, my sister, is merely recondite slang or thieves’ argot.