Definitions

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

  • noun Meaningless or deceptive language; humbug.
  • noun Any of several soft, sweet, bland foods, such as custard.
  • noun A sweet gelatinous pudding made by straining boiled oatmeal or flour.
  • noun A soft dessert of stewed, thickened fruit, often mixed with a grain such as rice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Mere nonsense; mere flattery; empty compliment.
  • noun A sort of jelly made of flour or meal; pap.
  • noun In modern cookery, a name given to various light preparations of milk and flour with white of eggs, sweetened and flavored, and served with cream as a dessert.
  • noun A refuse product of wheaten starch manufactures.

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

  • noun A light kind of food, formerly made of flour or meal; a sort of pap.
  • noun Something insipid, or not worth having; empty compliment; trash; unsubstantial talk of writing.

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

  • noun A custard; any of several bland, gelatinous foodstuffs, usually made from stewed fruit and thickened with oatmeal, cornstarch or flour
  • noun empty or meaningless talk
  • noun deceptive or blustering speech; bullshit
  • interjection an expression of contemptuous disbelief

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

  • noun a bland custard or pudding especially of oatmeal
  • noun meaningless ceremonies and flattery

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Welsh llymru, soft jelly from sour oatmeal.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Welsh llymru, a jelly derived from oatmeal

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Examples

  • Dutch flummery is made by boiling two ounces of isinglass in three half-pints of water very gently for half an hour.

    The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally Jane 1845

  • Rice flummery, which is a very nice side dish, is made by mixing a quarter of a pound of ground rice with a little cold milk, and then adding a pint of new milk which has been boiled, with a stick of cinnamon and a bit of lemon-peel; flavour it with sugar and a teaspoonful of peach-water.

    The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally Jane 1845

  • Sylvia's position and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his

    The Message 1912

  • Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout.

    Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works John Galsworthy 1900

  • The time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.

    The Forsyte Saga, Volume III. Awakening To Let John Galsworthy 1900

  • The time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.

    The Forsyte Saga - Complete John Galsworthy 1900

  • Now have I not given you a fine feast of homage, -- "flummery" Mr. Hawthorne calls it?

    Memories of Hawthorne Rose Hawthorne Lathrop 1888

  • "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.

    Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works John Galsworthy 1900

  • a little better than any other because it was their world, had kept the old Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout.

    The Forsyte Saga, Volume III. Awakening To Let John Galsworthy 1900

  • a little better than any other because it was their world, had kept the old Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout.

    The Forsyte Saga - Complete John Galsworthy 1900

Comments

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  • ~ empty talk or compliments.

    ~ sweet dish made with beaten eggs and sugar.

    ~ a soft jelly or porridge made with flour or meal.

    ~also, mummery, mumbo jumbo

    — ORIGIN Welsh llymru.

    January 19, 2009