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:
He labelled rogue bankers as "half-wits" and said the dams and flood dykes lining the Yangtze River were as "flimsy and porous as tofu dregs".
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
Maybe he’s convinced himself of a flimsy case.
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026
In dirty t-shirts and flimsy sandals, hundreds of unaccompanied minors slept outdoors in a disused industrial park in Ceuta after swimming to the Spanish territory from Morocco, AFP saw Saturday.
From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026
It’s a flimsy device that has to be maintained almost for the duration of the story.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 12, 2026
“I heard most of it. It was hard not to. It’s a flimsy toolshed; it’s not soundproof. He’s desperate, that’s all.”
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
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
A noted forger of these shams is said to have resided in the immediate neighbourhood about the period named on the discovered "flimsies."
From Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham A History and Guide Arranged Alphabetically by Thomas T. Harman
Letters were letters in those days, and not the notes and cards and "flimsies" of to-day.
From The Bristol Royal Mail Post, Telegraph, and Telephone by Robert Charles Tombs
All are dressed in paper flimsies of various shapes and colours.
From A Cotswold Village by J. Arthur Gibbs
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
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
Napkins, restaurant checks, currency, all the flimsier items of daily life outdoors might easily have been borne off on the breeze.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 18, 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
Beijing has also accused Washington of citing “even the flimsiest connection” such as the use of an American bank to assert jurisdiction over transactions that don’t primarily involve the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, an official at Germany’s Foreign Ministry and lead counsel in the case, told the 15-judge bench that Nicaragua had “rushed this case to court on the basis of the flimsiest evidence.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 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
When you're rejecting the evidence based on the flimsiest of arguments that don't hold any water at all, that's not skepticism.
From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2023
I came in late, repeatedly and with the flimsiest of excuses; made shockingly incorrect change; even misshelved things on purpose, stocking lotions among laxatives and birth control with baby shampoo.
From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
