flimsy

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Likely to bend or break under pressure

   Likely to bend or break under pressure; easily damaged; frail, unsubstantial.

   • He expected the flimsy structure to collapse at any moment.
   • Yet do I carry every vvhere vvith me ſuch a confounded farago of doubts, fears, hopes, vviſhes, and all the flimſy furniture of a country Miſs's brain!
   • But reveries (for human minds vvill act) / Specious in ſhovv, impoſſible in fact, / Thoſe flimſy vvebs that break as ſoon as vvrought, / Attain not to the dignity of thought.
2. 2

   Of an argument, explanation, etc.

   Of an argument, explanation, etc.: ill-founded, unconvincing, weak; also, unimportant; paltry, trivial.

   • a flimsy excuse
   • the flimsiest of theories
3. 3

   Of a person

   Of a person: lacking depth of character or understanding; frivolous, superficial.

   • Poor, flimsy, wise, foolish, aristocratical, old-bachelor Horace Walpole, is shocked at his nephew [George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford?] marrying an actress who brought him good children, […]
4. ›+ 8 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Of a person, their physical makeup, or their health

      Of a person, their physical makeup, or their health: delicate, frail.

      • […] I have a very flimsy constitution, consequently the young women won't taste my wit, and it is a long while before wit makes its own way in the world; especially, as I never prove it, by assuring people that I have it by me.
   2. 5

      A thing which is ill-founded, unconvincing, or weak.

      • Is every body incapable of reaſon, and making a right eſtimate of the merits of men? caught vvith mere outſide? chooſing the flimſy before the ſubſtantial?
   3. 6

      Thin typing paper used together with carbon paper in a typewriter to make multiple copies…

      Thin typing paper used together with carbon paper in a typewriter to make multiple copies of a document; (countable) a sheet of such paper.

      • I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant's telegram. […] I flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled.
   4. 7

      A document printed or typed on such paper.

      • A perusal of the comments of officers under whom he [Captain Duncan Herbert Stevens] has served as recorded in his “flimsies" indicates that he has almost consistently received high commendation for his service.
      • Regulations required a commanding officer to render annual confidential reports on the character and ability of his officers – with particular reference to sobriety – on forms known as ‘flimsies’.
   5. 8

      A hexahedral metal container with a capacity of four imperial gallons (about 18 litres)…

      A hexahedral metal container with a capacity of four imperial gallons (about 18 litres) used by the British Army during World War II to hold fuel.

   6. 9

      To make (something) likely to be easily damaged.

      • [W]hen he [A[rthur] Ernest Fitzgerald] tried to check reports that Lockheed was seriously "flimsying" the plane's construction, he received an angry call from Pentagon brass warning him, in effect, to keep out of engineering matters.
      • Cry for the travesties of homes that now squat meagre on wide concrete bases, / flimsied in palm-leaf. They will not last, but they will have to do in the thin hungry scrabble to survive.
   7. 10

      To type or write (text) on a flimsy (“sheet of thin typing paper used together with…

      To type or write (text) on a flimsy (“sheet of thin typing paper used together with carbon paper in a typewriter to make multiple copies of a document”) (noun sense 2); to distribute such flimsies.

   8. 11

      To treat (someone or something) as paltry or unimportant

      To treat (someone or something) as paltry or unimportant; to demean, to underestimate.

      • What she sacrificed in energy, emotion and integrity, diminished her rather than excelled. […] Teri suddenly saw herself flimsied by bargains she had negotiated too readily.

The neighborhood