Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (61 page)

flaky
²
, flakey
n British See
throw a flaky

flamboy
n British

an unfashionable and/or unattractive male. An item of youth slang recorded in 2011.

flame
vb

to attack verbally and/or humiliate by sending an internet or e-mail message. An item of
net-head
slang dating from the later 1980s.

She got flamed.

flamer
n

1a.
American
a flagrant or obvious sole-cism or blunder

1b.
American
a person who commits a gaffe or error

Both these subsenses of the word are campus terms, used especially in
preppie
jargon.

2.
a flagrant male homosexual, in American and Australian slang of the 1970s and 1980s. Since the beginning of the 19th century the word had been employed in British English to refer to something conspicuous.

flaming
¹
n American

(of homosexual males) behaving in a provocative or flamboyant manner

flaming
²
adj

an intensifying adjective; an alternative to
bloody
or a euphemism for
fucking
. The word is mainly heard in Britain, where it is rather dated, and in Australia, where it is fairly common. Especially in the north of England it forms part of several colourful but inoffensive oaths such as ‘flaming heck', ‘flaming 'eck' and ‘flaming Nora'.

flange
n British

the vagina. The phrase ‘piece of flange' is armed-forces' slang for (an attractive) woman. In its primary sense flange was publicised by its use in 2003 TV revelations of drunken revelling by young UK tourists in Ibiza.

Show us your flange!

flanked
adj American

drunk. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

flapdoodle
n

fuss, agitation, consternation. An invented nonsense word dating from the 19th century.

flap one's gums
vb American

to talk, speak or converse. An item of black street-talk that was included in so-called
Ebonics
, recognised as a legitimate language variety by school officials in Oakland, California, in late 1996. ‘Flap one's lips' is a less common variant,
snap/bump one's gums
are synonyms.

flaps
n pl

1.
ears, especially large or protruding ears

2.
the female labia

flash
¹
n

1.
a glimpse of, or deliberate exposure of, the genitals, breasts, underwear, etc.

2.
British
a street trader's display of goods

3.
an ugly or unattractive female,
minger
. The derivation ‘because she mings mercilessly' is from the Flash Gordon cartoons and film in which the villain is ‘Ming the Merciless'.

flash
²
adj

ostentatious, showing off. Since the 1960s, especially in Britain and Australia, this form has tended to replace the earlier ‘flashy'.

flasher
n

a sexual exhibitionist, a man who deliberately exposes his genitals in public. The word was slang or police jargon until the 1960s when the prevalence of the activity and a lessening of verbal prudishness brought it into common currency.

Flash Harry
n British

a show-off, a flamboyant or boastful person. The identity of the eponymous Harry is unknown.

flash the ash
vb British

to offer a cigarette. Usually the expression is in the form of a request or demand.

flat
adj British

penniless. A shortened form of the colloquial ‘flat broke', heard in raffish speech of the late 1980s.

flatlining
adj

drunk. The term is medical jargon for the state of a patient whose vital signs have disappeared, leaving only a flat trace on monitoring screens.

flat-roofin'
adj British

stressed, exhausted, overworked. The expression, which has been in use in multiethnic youth slang since the early noughties, is probably an alteration of the colloquial ‘working flat-out'.

flave
adj American

fashionable, stylish,
cool
. A vogue term among
rappers
and
hip hop
aficionados in the early 1990s, the word is an abbreviated form of the earlier word ‘flavor', denoting personal style.

flavour of the month
n

the current favourite or fashionable person or thing. An expression which usually expresses a scathing or critical attitude to fads or ephemeral popularity. (It derives from the use of the phrase in advertising ice cream in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s.)

fleabag
n

a.
a cheap, dirty hotel

b.
a scruffy, dirty person or animal

c.
an old sleeping bag or bed

fleapit
n

a cheap, dirty cinema. Originally the term usually referred to the front-stalls section and the ‘pit' in front of the screen. Before World War II, in the case of rural cinemas especially, the term was often a literal description.

flex
¹
n

British
energy, enthusiasm. A term from the jargon of dancefloor and
acid house
aficionados in the 1990s.

Give it flex!

flex
²
vb American

to depart

It's getting late, let's flex.

flexin'
n

showing off, acting ostentatiously. A vogue term in club culture since the later 1990s, by 2001 also in use among UK schoolchildren.

flexting
n British

flirting by way of mobile phone texts

flick
n

a film. This word was first common slang, then trade jargon in the film business and now, via such American magazines as
Variety
, is emerging again as a general term for a film. (For the derivation see
flicks
.)

See also
skinflick

flicking
adj British

an intensifying adjective, a euphemism for

fucking
. It is used, e.g., by schoolgirls and adult women.

‘I can lay any amount of hands on them – no flicking danger.'
(
An Evening with Victoria Wood
, British TV programme, 1988)

flicks, the flicks
n pl

the cinema, films. An early slang term in all English-speaking countries, derived from ‘flicker' or from the homemade moving pictures made by flicking cards. This form of the word is now obsolete in the USA and has rarely been heard in Britain or Australia since the early 1960s. The singular form
flick
is still current.

We're going down the flicks tomorrow night.

flim
n British

a five-pound banknote. The word was in use among teenagers in 2010.

flim-flam
vb
,
n

(to attempt) trickery or deceit, specifically a confidence trick involving a tall story. The word, which is in use in Britain, but more widespread in the USA, probably comes, via Scottish dialect, from an old Scandinavian word
flim
meaning mockery. The added second syllable is an example of a common linguistic change in comical words (such as knick-knack, etc.) known as ‘reduplication'.

‘I can smell flim-flam, right down to the paperclips you make me buy.'
(
Columbo
, US TV series, 1976)

fling
vb
,
n British

1.
(to give someone) a bribe, illicit payment. A piece of criminal and police
jargon which is a more recent coinage inspired by
bung
.

We'll have to fling him to square it.
I'd need a fling in that case.

2.
an affair, usually extramarital

flip, flip out
vb

to lose control, either through delight, anger, etc., under the influence of an illicit drug, or during the course of a nervous breakdown. Both words spread from American English to world English in the 1960s and derive from the earlier ‘flip one's wig' or ‘flip one's lid', in use in the late 1940s and 1950s among
hipsters
, jazz enthusiasts and
beatniks
. To flip out was used to describe temporary insanity caused by LSD in the early days of the
hippy
era. The term is now old-fashioned (although surviving in French, particularly in the form
flippé
).

‘He was worried about his mother, though. The old lady was flipping out.'
(
Requiem for a Dream
, Hubert Selby Jr., 1979)

flipping
adj British

a euphemism for
fucking
used as a mild intensifier, especially in such phrases as ‘flipping hell' or ‘flipping heck'

‘“Stop standing there dreaming, lass”, shouts Dad, “and get the top orf this flipping bottle of 'arp”.'
(
Town
magazine, May 1964)

FLK
n

‘funny looking kid' in medical shorthand, a jocular version of ‘possible dysmorphology' as written, e.g., on a paediatric patient's notes

flob
vb British

to spit. An echoic term heard among schoolchildren since the 1950s.

flog
vb

to sell. A common colloquialism in Britain which would still be considered slang by some speakers. The word originally referred to selling off military stores illicitly and is said to derive from a 19th-century army expression to ‘flog the clock', meaning to put the clock forward to shorten the working day, later extended to other devious behaviour.

flog the lizard/log/dong/meat/mutton/bishop
vb

to masturbate. Colourful expressions used of, and usually by, men. The verb to flog was employed in the formation of a large number of slang terms in the 18th and 19th centuries.

flook
n American

an unattractive and/or unpopular person. An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

floored
adj British

drunk. An item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

floozy, floosie
n

a disreputable, immoral, ‘loose-living' or frivolous female. A late-19th-century word which is still in use (now usually said light-heartedly). The word originated in the USA, but by the end of World War II was in widespread use elsewhere. It is probably a deformation of ‘flossy', an archaic word for a prostitute (itself deriving from ‘flossy', meaning ‘showy', or from the female nickname).

flop
n

1.
a place to sleep, a temporary bed or shelter. Especially in the USA the term has been used by vagrants since the early 20th century.

2.
excreta. Probably originating in the USA, where
dogflop
is heard, this euphemism is paralleled by the British
plop(s)
.

FLOP, flop
n Canadian

a cancelled event, appointment or arrangement

flophouse
n

a cheap hotel or dormitory for vagrants. Originally an Americanism, the word is now part of international English.

flopper
n Canadian

an individual given to cancelling arrangements at the last minute

floss
¹
n American

abbreviated female underwear; a G-string or thong. The colloquial shortening of ‘dental floss' was used by females from the late 1980s to refer to thongs (in the sense in underwear).

floss
²
vb American

(of a female) to behave ostentatiously and/or offensively, usually in public. The term was popularised by its use by singer Jennifer Lopez. By 2002 it was also heard in the UK.

flossed-up
adj American

dressed ostentatiously, presenting an extravagant or elegant appearance. The term has been widespread since 2000.

flossie, flossy
adj
,
n

(behaving like) an ostentatious, pretentious or otherwise obnoxious female. Said to derive originally from
floss
in the sense of thong underwear, the term is used by
females in the UK and USA of those they disapprove of.

flub
vb

to fail, blunder. The word, of uncertain origin, was recorded among computer specialists and
rave
devotees in the 1990s.

FLUB
n British

an idle, inert colleague, lazy person. The police slang abbreviation stands for ‘fat, lazy, useless bastard'.
BONGO
,
clothes hanger
and
uniform carrier
are synonyms.
See also
BINGO seat