Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Meaningless or deceptive language; humbug.
- n. Any of several soft, sweet, bland foods, such as custard.
- n. A sweet gelatinous pudding made by straining boiled oatmeal or flour.
- n. A soft dessert of stewed, thickened fruit, often mixed with a grain such as rice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A sort of jelly made of flour or meal; pap.
- n. 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.
- n. A refuse product of wheaten starch manufactures.
- n. Mere nonsense; mere flattery; empty compliment.
Wiktionary
- n. A custard; any of several bland, gelatinous foodstuffs, usually made from stewed fruit and thickened with oatmeal, cornstarch or flour
- n. empty or meaningless talk
- n. deceptive or blustering speech; bullshit
- interj. an expression of contemptuous disbelief
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A light kind of food, formerly made of flour or meal; a sort of pap.
- n. Something insipid, or not worth having; empty compliment; trash; unsubstantial talk of writing.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a bland custard or pudding especially of oatmeal
- n. meaningless ceremonies and flattery
Etymologies
- Welsh llymru, a jelly derived from oatmeal (Wiktionary)
- Welsh llymru, soft jelly from sour oatmeal. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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
“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
“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”
“Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout.”
“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.”
“Now have I not given you a fine feast of homage, -- "flummery" Mr. Hawthorne calls it?”
“flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural due of their possessive instincts.”
“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.”
“Meanwhile, he goes out with panache and his usual ability to see through flummery.”
“Sullen countermodernity images the academic as the snide sophistic Last Man, pathetically, defensively retreated into what – all good sense knows – is pseudo-intellectual flummery.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘flummery’.
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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phrontistery - f
from phrontistery.info
fabaceous, fabiform, fabulist, faburden, face-cord, facetiae, facia, facinorous, factious, factitious, factitive, factive and 418 more...
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Talk Talk
Words for Talking
( open list, randomness )squawk, gab, chatter, chitchat, blab, prattle, blather, discuss, hector, plead, cajole, harangue and 200 more...
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truman486's list
Masterbatory Aids
ensorcelled, scintilla, maudlin, lugubrious, frisson, praxis, copasetic, crotch, corollary, bandy, undulating, anthropomorphic and 65 more...
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Oats
avener, avenor, avenary, potato-oat, haver, haver-grass, haverbread, havercake, avercake, oats, groats, rolled oats and 51 more...
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Pease Porridge Hot
List of terms for porridge dishes made from seeds, grains, legumes, etc. from around the world.
See mollusque's list More gruel?.
mush, oatmeal, frumenty, pinhead oatmeal, porridge, grits, atole, gruel, shuco, polenta, gofio, kachamak and 69 more...
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Nonsense
Synonyms of "nonsense"
tomfoolery, balderdash, poppycock, lalapalooza, hullabaloo, hodgepodge, gibberish, shenanigans, hootenanny, jabberwocky, gobbledygook, mummery and 21 more...
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British Food
Traditional British dishes have some of the most unique and interesting names. Here's a list to collect all those wonderfully-named foods and delectable words to describe how delicious British cuis...
spotted dick, black pudding, crumpets, yorkshire pudding, mushy peas, bubble and squeak, scotch egg, fish and chips, clotted cream, full english, bangers and mash, sunday roast and 63 more...
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Valuseless
Of low worth or little importance.
Unwanted matter by drusky is a nice, related list.trivial, cheap, inutile, ineffectual, dross, floccinaucinihili..., gimcrack, frippery, invalidated, drivel, otiose, tripe and 91 more...
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work these into conversation
Challenge!
legerdemain, polysemic, rupestrian, callipygian, oscitancy, numen, lucubration, asperity, amalgam, apposite, wastrel, eleemosynary and 208 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
Gems from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulg...
Citation: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, unabridged from the original 1811 edition, with a foreword by Max Harris. London: Bibliophile Books, 1984.
Original title page: A Dictio...tuzzy-muzzy, half seas over, hugger mugger, hugotontheonbiqui..., doodle sack, juniper lecture, kate, kent street eject..., jack ketch, davy, abel-wackets, three-legged mare and 370 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, F
felony, frolic, fend, fuselage, farthingale, freewheeling, frigorific, flummery, fancypants, felsitic, flagstone, flageolet and 295 more...
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word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for flummery.
avivamagnolia ~ 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. Jan 19, 2009