flimsy
Americanadjective
-
flimsier,
comparative
-
flimsiest
superlative
noun
-
flimsies
plural
-
a thin kind of paper, especially for use in making several copies at a time of an article, telegraphic dispatch, or the like, as in newspaper work.
-
a copy of a report or dispatch on such paper.
adjective
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not strong or substantial; fragile
a flimsy building
-
light and thin
a flimsy dress
-
unconvincing or inadequate; weak
a flimsy excuse
noun
-
thin paper used for making carbon copies of a letter, etc
-
a copy made on such paper
-
a slang word for banknote
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of flimsy
1695–1705; flim- (perhaps metathetic variant of film ) + -sy
Explanation
You can describe weak, thin, and fragile things as flimsy. Onion smells are strong, onion skins are flimsy. Blaming onions for making you cry during a sad movie, that's a flimsy excuse, when there are no onions in the theater. A flimsy object and a flimsy objection or excuse are both without weight and are easy to knock down. You can see right through a flimsy curtain, and you can see right through a flimsy lie. If a tent or house of cards is flimsy, it will fall down with a slight breeze, and if your story isn't convincing anyone, it's probably weak and flimsy enough to flatten, too.
Vocabulary lists containing flimsy
List 6
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The Cay
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Vocabulary from "Stop Expecting Games to Build Empathy" by Julie Muncy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Mohammed Annour spent much of his youth living in a flimsy shelter in a dusty, overcrowded refugee camp in east Africa, where the days were long, the food was poor and the future nonexistent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
"He joins 16 other pilots sentenced in just three months for endangering lives with flimsy, overcrowded dinghies," she said.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
According to testimony from the two survivors, their flimsy boat began to deflate and take on water after several hours at sea.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
But the characterizations are too flimsy, the world only moderately textured.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026
The tannery stood, its bricks and cement had held it together despite the raging winds; but the workers’ huts, of more flimsy construction, had been demolished.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
Otto, melodramatically helped by various Black-Fronters, fled the country, started his years of writing and smuggling through revolutionary flimsies and stickers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Army lieutenant in trackman's flimsies stepped into the discus ring.
From Time Magazine Archive
The flimsies don't begin to come in till eleven.
From Comrade Yetta by Albert Edwards
All are dressed in paper flimsies of various shapes and colours.
From A Cotswold Village by J. Arthur Gibbs
"So I supposed," growled the grizzled old man, who sat at a big desk upon which was piled many flimsies.
From The Lost Naval Papers by Bennet Copplestone
However, that argument too, is looking flimsier given how expensive AI models are to build for relatively little payoff.
From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026
Many have been enduring temperatures well below freezing in flimsier tent-like units with blue plastic sheeting on the outside and a quilted cotton lining inside.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2023
In fact, she didn’t always rap in her now recognizable deep, rich timbre: Her 2019 mixtape, “Most Likely Up Next,” features a higher, flimsier register, though sparks of her relentless energy start to shine through.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 26, 2023
They’re the closest thing Asus has to a MacBook Air competitor, with chassis that are slightly flimsier, touchpads with fancier features, and price tags that are a bit less intimidating.
From The Verge ● Aug. 15, 2022
Then they started snapping their jaws and barking and bashing into the flimsy bars of Duke’s even flimsier cage.
From "Dog Squad" by Chris Grabenstein
Suspects were swept up in Afghanistan or Pakistan, often on the flimsiest of tip-offs.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
The Chobot-Collier team never speaks to the authorities, or any police at all, save for the handlers of a cadaver dog used in a search for Theresa’s body, an effort launched on the flimsiest lead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
Corbet’s desire to stick it to the man takes over the film’s last stretch, which is also its flimsiest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
And in this modern era of ubiquitous social media and technology, when there’s the impulse to make people famous for even the flimsiest of reality-TV reasons?
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 8, 2024
Some scientists have believed that Mars is inhabited on what has later proved to be the flimsiest evidence.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
