flummery
Americannoun
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oatmeal or flour boiled with water until thick.
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fruit custard or blancmange usually thickened with cornstarch.
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any of various dishes made of flour, milk, eggs, sugar, etc.
-
complete nonsense; foolish humbug.
noun
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informal meaningless flattery; nonsense
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a cold pudding of oatmeal, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of flummery
1615–25; < Welsh llymru, with ending assimilated to -ery
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.
"But he really just wanted to cut through all the flummery and get people to see him for what he was."
From Fox News • Apr. 18, 2021
"The production dispenses with conventional spectacle, colourful costumes and visual flummery," says The Guardian's Michael Billington.
From BBC • Dec. 9, 2019
His career in flummery and flimflam was launched when he left reform school at age 14 to work as a Coney Island pitchman, then joined Dr. W.H.
From Washington Post • Aug. 8, 2018
Ultimately, Dynamo's brand of streetbound trickery isn't about eloquence or flummery.
From The Guardian • Jul. 6, 2013
It sounded like a lot of flummery to Drave, but what did he know?
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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.
