Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Cheap and showy; gaudy. synonym: garish.
  • adjective Giving a momentary or superficial impression of brilliance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Insipid; vapid; without taste or spirit, as food or drink.
  • Like a flash: characterized by flashes or flashing; specifically, acting by flashes, or by fits and starts; quick; impulsive; fiery.
  • Showy; dazzling for a moment, but not lasting, solid, or real; meretricious.
  • Ostentatiously showy in appearance; gay; gaudy; tawdry: as, a flashy dress.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Dazzling for a moment; making a momentary show of brilliancy; transitorily bright.
  • adjective Fiery; vehement; impetuous.
  • adjective Showy; gay; gaudy.
  • adjective Without taste or spirit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Showy; visually impressive, attention-getting, or appealing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective tastelessly showy
  • adjective (used especially of clothes) marked by conspicuous display

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

flash +‎ -y

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Examples

  • "He is what I call a flashy liver," says Marshall.

    Field Marshal 2008

  • Younger drivers in flashy SUVs or sporty small cars are still ticket magnets, too.

    Is Your Car Getting You More Traffic Tickets? Joseph B. White 2010

  • On the one hand, this gave the profession enough self-doubt to allow some of its brighter sons to start noodling around with the past, and to discover it was a fine thing; on the other hand, it gave us Frank Gehry, that dealer in flashy junk heaps, a sort of superficial Dinocretes writ larger than Vitruvius could have ever imagined.

    The Dangers of Architectural Positivism 2009

  • Young men and women dressed in flashy pants and skimpy dresses sat at long tables on three sides of a dance floor, downing huge amounts of cheap whiskey.

    Thai Noon 2008

  • Young men and women dressed in flashy pants and skimpy dresses sat at long tables on three sides of a dance floor, downing huge amounts of cheap whiskey.

    Thai Noon 2008

  • The moment I entered the shop, I was instantly attracted to Sony's DJ headphones (in flashy packaging) which had a frequency between 14 Hz and 22,000Hz.

    Archive 2007-08-01 2007

  • The moment I entered the shop, I was instantly attracted to Sony's DJ headphones (in flashy packaging) which had a frequency between 14 Hz and 22,000Hz.

    Chinese Imports: No Longer Just Cheap and Inferior? 2007

  • He did not engage in flashy reform, or buzz-word-of-the-day ‘programs’ which places like Curry churn out endlessly.

    A Brief History of C'ville Superintendents at cvillenews.com 2005

  • In China, legions of newly rich are characterized by flashy, big-ticket spending.

    Reuters: Press Release 2011

  • He ain't what you call a flashy dresser, but he lays it all over the young chaps like Thad West who think they're so swell. "

    Other People's Business The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale Harriet L. Smith

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  • cafcaflı

    August 23, 2010