Sekirov Dictionary

flimsy

/ˈflɪmzi/

noun 7
adjective 5
verb 3
forms 7

noun7

•
[before a noun] (old-fashioned, historical) 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. — 1916
A document printed or typed on such paper.
•
(slang, old-fashioned) A service certificate.
- 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’. — 1994
•
(slang, old-fashioned) A banknote; (uncountable) paper money.
- In English Exchequer-bills full half a million, / Not “kites,” manufactured to cheat and inveigle, / But the right sort of ‘flimsy,’ all sign’d by Monteagle. — 1842
(old-fashioned, historical) The text to be set into pages of magazines, newspapers, etc.; copy.
•
(old-fashioned) 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? — 1794
(slang, old-fashioned) 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.

adjective5

•
Likely to bend or break under pressure; easily damaged; frail, unsubstantial.
- He expected the flimsy structure to collapse at any moment.
•
Of clothing: very light and thin.
- Compelled, by its deformity, to screen / With flimsy veil of justice and of right, / Its unattractive lineaments, that scare / All, save the brood of ignorance: […] — 1813
(figurative) Of an argument, explanation, etc.: ill-founded, unconvincing, weak; also, unimportant; paltry, trivial.
•
(figurative) 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, […] — 1847
(figurative, no longer used) Of a person, their physical makeup, or their health: delicate, frail.

verb3

•
To make (something) likely to be easily damaged.
- 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. — 2003
•
(figurative) 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. — 2008
(old-fashioned, historical) 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”); to distribute such flimsies.

forms

flimsied · flimsying · flimsies · flimsier · more flimsy · flimsiest · most flimsy

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