glimflashy

English

Alternative forms

• glim-flashy, glimflashey, glimflashly, glimflushly

Etymology

17th century. First attested in Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary (1676). From glim (“eye”) +‎ flashy (“flashing”). Figurative of someone's eyes flashing with anger.

Adjective

glimflashy (comparative more glimflashy, superlative most glimflashy)

1. (archaic, slang, figurative) Angry
   • 1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter 82, in Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman, page 385:

     "What ho, my kiddy!" cried Job, "don't be glimflashy; why you'd cry beef on a blater; the cove is a bob cull, and a pal of my own; and moreover, is as pretty a Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an acorn."

   • 1985, Kasey Michaels, The Savage Miss Saxon (Alphabet Regency Romance; 5):

     "Glimflashy, he was, saying we was all dicked in the nob or else we should be bummed, laced up in darbies, and tossed in the bilboes. Oh, gloomy hour—what a brangle."

   • 2014, Elizabeth Boyce, Honor Among Thieves (The Honorables; 1):

     "Dewhurst gone all glimflashy on me."¶ Pete took a long glug of his beer. "What's he mad about?"

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:angry