Flourishes

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Flourish \Flour"ish\, n.; pl. {Flourishes}.
     1. A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. [Archaic]
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              The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never
              had the like.                         --Howell.


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     2. Decoration; ornament; beauty.
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              The flourish of his sober youth
              Was the pride of naked truth.         --Crashaw.
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     3. Something made or performed in a fanciful, wanton, or
        vaunting manner, by way of ostentation, to excite
        admiration, etc.; ostentatious embellishment; ambitious
        copiousness or amplification; parade of words and figures;
        show; as, a flourish of rhetoric or of wit.
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              He lards with flourishes his long harangue.
                                                    --Dryden.
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     4. A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely
        decorative figure.
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              The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible
              curiously printed.                    --Boyle.
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     5. A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of
        triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical
        composition; a cal; a fanfare.
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              A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums! --Shak.
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     6. The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as,
        the flourish of a sword.
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