44-5 FLA 
Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one 
When they combine and mingle, bring 
A drong regard and awe ; but fpeech alone 
Doth vanith like a flaring thing, 
And in the ear, not confidence, ring. Herbert. 
To glitter offensively : 
When the fun begins to fling 
His flaring beams, me, goddefs, bring 
To arched walks of twilight groves. Milton. 
To be in too much light : 
I cannot (lay 
Flaring in funfhine all the day. Prior. 
To flutter with a fplendid fliow : 
She (hall be loofe enrob’d. 
With ribbands pendant flaring'haul her head. Shakefpeare. 
FLASH, f. [tpyoi;, Gr. Minjheio.] A hidden, quick, 
tranfltory blaze. 
And as .fEgeon, when with heaven he drove, 
Defy’d the forky lightning from afar, 
At fifty mouths his flaming breath expires, 
And Jlafli for jlajh returns, and fires for fires. Dryden. 
Sudden burd of wit or merriment.—Where be your gibes 
now ? your gambols ? your fongs ? your flafkes of merri¬ 
ment, that were wont to fet the table in a roar ? Shakefpeare. 
A fliort transient date.—The Perfians and Macedonians 
had it for a flajh. Bacon. —A body of water driven by 
violence. "* 
To FLASH, v. n. To glitter with a quick and tranfient 
flame.—This fait powdered, and put into a crucible, was, 
by the injection of well-kindled charcoal, made to flajk 
divers times, alrnod like melted nitre. Boyle. —To burd 
out into any kind of violence : 
By day and night he wrongs me; ev’ry hour 
He flajfhes into one grofs crime or other. 
That fets us all at odds. Shakefpeare. 
To break out into wit, merriment, or bright thought. 
"—They flafh out fometimes into an irregular greatnels of 
thought. Felton on the ClaJ/ics. 
To FLASH, v. a. To drike up large bodies of water 
from the furface.—If the fea-water be flajhed with a dick 
or car, the fame cadeth a fliining colour, and the drops 
relemble fparkles of fire. Carezv. 
FLASH'ER,yi A man of more appearance of wit than 
reality. 
FLASH'ILY, adv. With empty fliow ; without real 
power of wit, or folidity of thought. 
FLASIl'INESS, f. The date or quality of being flafliy. 
FLA'SHY, adj. [from jlafli .] Empty; notfolid; fliowy 
without fubdance.— Flafliy wits cannot fathom the whole 
extent of a large difcourle. Digby on the Soul. 
This mean conceit, this darling mydery. 
Which thou think’d nothing, friend; thou flialt not buy; 
Nor will I change for all thy flafliy wit. Dryden. 
[From flaccidus, Lat.] Infipid; without force orfpirit.— 
Diddled books are, like common diddled waters, flafliy 
things. Bacon. 
FLASK, f. \_flafque, Fr.] A bottle ; a veffel : 
Then for the Bourdeaux you may freely afk ; 
But the Champaigne is to each man his flajk. King. 
A powder-horn: 
Powder in a Ikillefs foldier’s flajk 
Is fet on fire. Shakefpeare. 
In gunnery, the bead in the carriage of a piece of ordnance. 
[From plaxa, Sax.] A bottle done over with wicker. 
FLASK'ET, f. A veffel in which viands are ferved. 
A long fhallow bafket. 
FLAS'SET, an ifland in the North Sea, near the wed 
coafi of Norway : eighty-eight miles fouth-wed of Dron- 
1 he ini'. 
FLA 
FLAT, adj. [plat, Fr.] Horizontally level without- 
inclination: 
Thou, all-fhaking thunder, 
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world. Shakefpeare. 
Smooth ; without protuberances.—In the dawning of thi 
next day we might plainly difcern it was a land flat to our 
fight, and full of bofcage. Bacon.— Not elevated ; fallen; 
not eredt: 
Ceafe t’ admire, and beauty’s plumes 
Fall flat , and fhrink into a trivial toy, 
At every hidden flighting quite abaftit. Milten. 
Level with the ground : 
In them is plained taught, and eafied learnt, 
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it fo, 
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat. Milton. 
Lying prodrate; lying along : 
The wood-born people fall before her flat, 
And wordiip her as goddefs of the wood. Spenfer. 
[In painting.] Wanting relief; wanting prominence of 
the figures: 
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up 
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece. Shakefpeare. 
Tadelefs; infipid ; dead : 
The miry fields, 
Rejoicing in rich mold, mod ample fruit 
Of beauteous form produce ; pleading to fight, 
But to the tongue inelegant and flat. Philips. 
Dull ; unanimated ; frigid.—Short fpeeches fly abroad 
like darts, and are thought to be ffiot out of fecret inten¬ 
tions ; but as for large difcourfes, they are flat things, and' 
not fo much noted. Bacon. 
Depreffed ; fpiritlefs; dejeCted i 
I feel my genial fpirits droop. 
My hopes all flat, nature within me feems 
In all her fundions w'eary of herfelf. Milton. 
Unpleafing; tadelefs.—To one firmly perfuaded of the- 
reality of heavenly happinefs, and earnedly defirous of 
obtaining it, all earthly fatisfaftions mud needs look 
little, and grow flat and unfavoury. Atterbury. —Peremp¬ 
tory ; abfolute ; downright.—As it is in the nature of all 
men to love liberty, fo they become flat libertines. Spenfer 
If thou fin in wine or wantonnefs, 
Boad not thereof, nor make thy fliame thy glory ; 
Frailty gets pardon by fubmillivenefs, 
But he that boads, flints that out of his dory, 
He makes flat war with God, and doth defy, 
With his meer clod of earth, the fpacious Iky. Herbert. 
Not (brill; not acute; not Iharp in found.—The upper- 
end of the windpipe is endued with feveral cartilages and; 
mufcles to contractor dilate it, as we would have our voice. 
flat or fliarp. Ray. 
FLAT, f. A level ; an extended plane.—The firings- 
of a lute, viol, or virginals, give a far greater found, by 
reafon of the knot, board and concave underneath, than 
if there were nothing but only the flat of a board to let 
in the upper air into the lower. Bacon. —-In mufic ; fee 
Music.—Even ground ; not mountainous : 
Now pile your dud upon the quick and dead, 
’Till of this flat a mountain you have made, 
T’ o’ertop old Pelion, or the Ikyilh head 
Of blue Olympus. Shakefpeare . 
A fmooth low ground expofed to inundations; 
The ocean, overpeering of his lid. 
Eats not the flats with more impetuous hade 
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, 
O’erbears your officers. Shakefpeare. 
Shallow ; drand ; place in the fea where the water is noS 
deep enough for (hips.—Mud we now have an ocean of 
mere 
