Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A freak; a trick; an imposition or deception.
- To cheat out of (money), as in making or receiving change or the like.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A freak; a trick; a lie.
WordNet 3.0
- v. deceive somebody
- n. a swindle in which you cheat at gambling or persuade a person to buy worthless property
Etymologies
- Probably of Scandinavian origin.
Examples
“He characterized as a flimflam my Medicare Advantage amendment to the health-care bill that would transitionally protect the benefits of nearly a million seniors currently enrolled in these plans.”
“But, though sober reason told him this, it was astonishingly comforting to be going to some one who could be relied on to see the facts of the situation without any of that 'flimflam' with which imagination is accustomed to surround them.”
“He threw around the word "flimflam," as in Ryan is "serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.”
“He used "flimflam" elsewhere and concluded that "the Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America's fiscal future.”
“Rudolf Steiner was a complete nutcase," Mr. Smith writes, "a flimflam man with a tremendous imagination, a combination if you will, of an LSD-dropping Timothy Leary with the showmanship of a P.T. Barnum.”
The Wall Street Journal: Biodynamics: Natural Wonder or Just a Horn of Manure?
“Also the local gas station is a haven for flimflam gas scams.”
“In other words, instead of glamorizing Sarah like The Times did with this biker edition Cover Girl photo and the movie lot "Easy Rider" title, what if the media published photos of Team Palin -- in this case, at Sunday's Rolling Thunder veteran POW/MIA motorcycle ride starting at the Pentagon -- as the flimflam they really are?”
“Here at least Eastwood had the good sense to depict what most psychics are like -- scammers and flimflam artists conning their marks out of a few bucks by talking twaddle with the dead through standard cold-reading techniques.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Shermer: The Eternally Boring Hereafter
“In his remarks Tuesday, the new governor also referenced Enron, once No. 7 in the S&P 500, and now a synonym for fiscal flimflam.”
“Underneath all the flimflam, that also seems to be what they intend to do now.'”
The Guardian: NHS bans on operations gamble with patients' health, senior surgeon warns
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘flimflam’.
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set phasers to...
you name the setting
I've tuned mine to be gentler and kinder
following suit is not mandatory but would be appreciatedcoddle, confuse, flummox, tap, furrow, instigate, invigorate, punnify, logical, must... act... be..., bowdlerise, laughing gas and 419 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Only the Vowels are Different
hip-hop, fiddle-faddle, mishmash, flip-flop, chit-chat, riffraff, knick-knack, ping-pong, zigzag, sing-song, criss-cross, seesaw and 14 more...
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Thievery
synonymous with steal.
pinch, lift, pilfer, appropriate, bilk, abscond, burgle, usurp, purloin, shoplift, bite, five finger discount and 19 more...
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Lying, cheating, and stealing
subterfuge, chicanery, skulduggery, pilfer, purloin, bamboozle, bilk, gyp, hoodwink, swindle, hoax, dupe and 28 more...
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Satisfyingly reduplicative words
flimflam, dillydally, fimblefamble, chitchat, teeter totter, gewgaw, hip hop, criss cross, king kong, rickrack, knickknack, shilly shally and 5 more...
Louises False ID's, code words, assignations, surveillance, night flights. Espionage flimflam. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.
Feb 27, 2012