English Dictionary: flourishes | by the DICT Development Group |
1 result for flourishes | |
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: | |
Flourish \Flour"ish\, n.; pl. {Flourishes}. 1. A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. [Archaic] The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never had the like. --Howell. 2. Decoration; ornament; beauty. The flourish of his sober youth Was the pride of naked truth. --Crashaw. 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. He lards with flourishes his long harangue. --Dryden. 4. A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative figure. The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible curiously printed. --Boyle. 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. A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums! --Shak. 6. The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the flourish of a sword. |