Etymology The origin of the adjective is uncertain; it is possibly from flim(-flam) (“(noun) false information presented as true, misinformation, nonsense; poor attempt at deception, confidence trick, pretence; (adjective) frivolous, nonsensical; deceptive; fictitious”) or a metathesis of film (“thin layer of a substance; slender thread”) + -sy (suffix forming adjectives and nouns). The noun and verb are derived from the noun. Noun sense 4 (“metal container”) refers to the fact that the containers often split along their seams and leaked.
1
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!1775 January 17 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The Rivals, a Comedy. […], London: […] John Wilkie, […], published 1775, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 20:
4 more examples
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.1782, William Cowper, “Retirement”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 290:
[T]here always comes a day when the rouſed publick indignation kicks their flimſy edifice down, and ſends its cowardly enemies a-flying.1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Recapitulations”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume II, London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC, page 64:
[…] I would have pulled that window out by its frame, if need be, to get to that table. There was no need, for the flimsy clasp gave at the first pull, and the sashes swung open.1916, John Buchan, “Sparrows on the Housetops”, in Greenmantle, London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 239:
"I've done nothing yet," he would say, "I don't think I've got any real genius. But if I keep trying I may write a good book." Fine dives have been made from flimsier spring-boards.1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night: A Romance, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as chapter VII, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night: A Romance … With the Author’s Final Revisions, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951, →OCLC, book IV (Escape: 1925–1929), page 223:
2
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, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto V”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 60:
She was wearing the flimsiest blouse and faded jeans.2016, Mike Scantlebury, chapter 12, in Prince William (at Olympics 2012) (Amelia Hartliss Mysteries; 3), [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 203:
3
Figuratively Of an argument, explanation, etc.: ill-founded, unconvincing, weak; also, unimportant; paltry, trivial.
a flimsy excuse
the flimsiest of theories
2 more examples
VVho ſhames a Scribler? break one cobvveb thro', / He ſpins the ſlight, ſelf-pleaſing thread anevv; / Deſtroy his Fib, or Sophiſtry; in vain, / The Creature's at his dirty vvork again; / Thron'd in the Centre of his thin deſigns; / Proud of a vaſt Extent of flimzy lines.1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], →OCLC, page 5, lines 87–90:
And hovvever flimzey this title, and thoſe of VVilliam Rufus [William II of England] and Stephen of Blois [Stephen, King of England], may appear at this diſtance to us, after the lavv of deſcents hath novv been ſettled for ſo many centuries, they vvere ſufficient to puzzle the underſtandings of our brave, but unlettered, anceſtors.1765, William Blackstone, “Of the King, and His Title”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book I (Of the Rights of Persons), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 194:
4
Figuratively Of a person: lacking depth of character or understanding; frivolous, superficial.
"Yes, fell woman," answered Middlemas; "but was it I who encouraged the young tyrant's outrageous passion for a portrait, or who formed the abominable plan of placing the original within his power?" / "No—for to do so required brain and wit. But it was thine, flimsy villain, to execute the device which a bolder genius planned; it was thine to entice the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence of a love, which, on thy part, cold-blooded miscreant, never had existed."1827, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Chronicles of the Canongate; […], volume II (The Surgeon’s Daughter), Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 305:
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, Leigh Hunt, “Duchess of St. Albans [Harriet Mellon], and Marriages from the Stage”, in Men, Women, and Books; a Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […] , →OCLC, page 195:
5
Figuratively, Obsolete 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.1742 January 17 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Horace Walpole, “Letter XVIII”, in Lord Dover [i.e., George Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover], editor, Letters of Horace Walpole Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley […], published 1833, →OCLC, page 72:
Etymology The origin of the adjective is uncertain; it is possibly from flim(-flam) (“(noun) false information presented as true, misinformation, nonsense; poor attempt at deception, confidence trick, pretence; (adjective) frivolous, nonsensical; deceptive; fictitious”) or a metathesis of film (“thin layer of a substance; slender thread”) + -sy (suffix forming adjectives and nouns). The noun and verb are derived from the noun. Noun sense 4 (“metal container”) refers to the fact that the containers often split along their seams and leaked.
1
Dated, Historical 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, William Godwin, chapter V, in Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams. […], volume I, London: […] B. Crosby, […], →OCLC, page 96:
2
Also, Dated, 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.
“‘Pray, miss,’ he said, ‘do not interrupt me. I represent the Press. The Fourth Estate, miss. I’m afraid I shan’t have enough flimsy.’ “Those were his very words, Kate. By flimsy, I learn that he meant writing paper. Do our great poets—does my adored [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson write on ‘flimsy?’[”]1872, [Walter Besant, James Rice], chapter 8, in Ready-money Mortiboy. A Matter-of-fact Story. […], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, pages 125–126:
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, John Buchan, “A Mission is Proposed”, in Greenmantle, London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC, page 1:
3 more examples
She dragged the cover off the typewriter with sound and fury, jerked the desk-drawers till they slammed against the drawer-stops, shook the top-sheet carbons and flimsies together as a terrier shakes a rat, and attacked the machine tempestuously.1930, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, chapter XIV, in Strong Poison, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, published April 1967, →ISBN, page 118:
'I told you that I had an answer to that cable, Mr Stewart,' he said directly. 'I'm afraid it isn't very satisfactory.' He passed the flimsy to Keith, who could not read it without the steel-rimmed spectacles he always had to use for close work.1960, Nevil Shute [pseudonym; Nevil Shute Norway], chapter 3, in Trustee from the Toolroom, London; Melbourne, Vic.: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 47:
Smiley peered once more at the flimsy which he still clutched in his pudgy hand.1977, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], The Honourable Schoolboy, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, page 274:
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.1964 August 13, John [Armstrong] Spicer, Commissioner, “Officers Principally Concerned”, in Report of Royal Commissioner on Loss of H.M.A.S. “Voyager” (Papers Presented to Parliament; XIII), Canberra, A.C.T: [F]or the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia by A. J. Arthur, Commonwealth Government printer, →OCLC, page 3:
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, John Wells, “The Community of the Mid-Victorian Navy”, in The Royal Navy: An Illustrated Social History 1870–1982, Stroud, Gloucestershire; Dover, N.H.: Alan Sutton Publishing in association with the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, →ISBN, page 7:
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 April, Thomas Ingoldsby [pseudonym; Richard Harris Barham], “The Merchant of Venice. A Legend of Italy.”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XI, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 430:
THE THIEVES' ALPHABET. […] Q was a Queer-screen, that served as a blind;†† / R was a Reader,‡‡ with flimsies well lined; […]1845, George W[illiam] M[acArthur] Reynolds, “The Old House in Smithfield Again”, in The Mysteries of London, volume I, London: Geo[rge] Vickers, […], →OCLC, page 60, column 1:
5
Journalism, Media, NewspapersBroadly, Dated, Historical The text to be set into pages of magazines, newspapers, etc.; copy.
[page 31] Sub-editors are now hard at work cutting down "flimsy," ramming sheets of "copy" on files, endlessly conferring with perspiring foremen. […] [page 34] The last report from the late debate in the Commons has come in; the last paragraph of interesting news, dropped into the box by a stealthy penny-a-liner, has been eliminated from a mass of flimsy on its probation, and for the most part rejected; […]1859, George Augustus Sala, “Five o’Clock a.m.—The Publication of the ‘Times’ Newspaper”, in Twice Round the Clock; or The Hours of the Day and Night in London. […], London: Houlston and Wright, […], →OCLC, pages 31 and 34:
6
Government, Military, Politics, WarUK, Dated, Historical, Slang 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.
But the Q[uartermaster] has ballsed-up T3 patrol's fuel ration; instead of jerry cans we get "flimsies," the notorious four-gallon containers made of metal so thin you can practically puncture it with a fingernail. Flimsies come two to a case, packed in cardboard. Of seventy-six that Collier's crew take down from the Mack, twenty-one are leaking at the seams; eleven have drained half to nil.2008, Steven Pressfield, chapter 10, in Killing Rommel […], New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 98:
Etymology The origin of the adjective is uncertain; it is possibly from flim(-flam) (“(noun) false information presented as true, misinformation, nonsense; poor attempt at deception, confidence trick, pretence; (adjective) frivolous, nonsensical; deceptive; fictitious”) or a metathesis of film (“thin layer of a substance; slender thread”) + -sy (suffix forming adjectives and nouns). The noun and verb are derived from the noun. Noun sense 4 (“metal container”) refers to the fact that the containers often split along their seams and leaked.
1
Dated, Historical To make (something) likely to be easily damaged.
Its method may be roughly said to be the invention, at all events for the main characters in their novels, of a psychology so tortuous and devious that its fantastic contours cannot be fitted into any single act or situation of or in life without an elaborate apparatus of dissertation. The artistic disadvantages of the method are many. One, and perhaps the chief, is a weakening—a "flimsying" of the structure because a proper proportion of the obvious, which is the thews and sinews of fiction, has, perforce, to be left out.1926 February 21, “Feminist furor: Three Kingdoms. By Storm Jameson. 365 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. [book review]”, in The New York Times (Book review section), New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 5:
[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.1981, James Nathan Miller, “Buying and Selling at the Pentagon”, in Marc Holzer, Ellen Doree Rosen, editors, Current Cases in Public Administration, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, section IV (Human Behavior), page 184:
1 more example
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, “Facing the Challenges of Time and Place [5.57: On Coming Home from Kampuchea]”, in This We Can Say: Australian Quaker Life, Faith and Thought, Kenmore, Qld.: Faith and Practice Committee, Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), published 2004, →ISBN, page 280:
2
Dated, 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”) (noun sense 2); to distribute such flimsies.
An interview is not a speech. […] If a man wants to publish an allocution of this kind, he should write it out and give it to me, or anyone else—a newsagency for example—and it will be "flimsied" to most of our English daily papers, whose conductors would, of course, use their own discretion as to how much or how little of it they would use. But in no sense of the word could such a performance be properly classified under the heading of the interview.1895 November, Frank Banfield, “Interviewing in Practice”, in The National Review, volume XXVI, number 153, London: Edward Arnold, […], →OCLC, page 368:
Did you, as a matter of fact, receive pages 55 and 56 at the same time?—I cannot say that I did. / But if you had received them?—I should have flimsied them with this. / As they are not flimsied, what do you say?—All I can presume is that they were not there. I should not have separated one paper from the other, and flimsied one and left the other.1904 June 16, [Robert Wallace] Best, chairman and questioner; William Chessell, witness, “Select Committee. Privilege: Case of Senator Lt.-Col. [John Cash] Neild. Minutes of Evidence.”, in Journals of the Senate and Printed Papers having Special Reference to the Senate, volume I, [Canberra, A.C.T]: [F]or the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia by Rob[er]t S. Brain, Government Printer for the State of Victoria, published 1904, →OCLC, paragraphs 908–910, page 79:
2 more examples
[…] Mr. Spencer Hughes, the Liberal, is accusing the Independent Labour men of being "blacklegs." Some of them, it seems, have been doing the work of two or three journalists in the House, flimsying and syndicating London Letters and Labour articles and notes in a number of newspapers. Cannot they be peacefully persuaded to attend to their own work, and leave journalism to journalists?1907 June 22, “Notes of the week”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume 103, number 2,695, London: […] Reginald Webster Page, […], →OCLC, page 765, column 2:
I [Phil May] lived down Brixton way and made a precarious living by flimsying news paragraphs and personally delivering copies at the newspaper offices. Sometimes they were used in full, occasionally they were ruthlessly cut down to a few lines; often they went direct to the waste-paper basket.1923, Henry Lucy, chapter XIX, in The Diary of a Journalist: Fresh Extracts, volume III, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 179:
3
Dated, Figuratively, Historical 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, Jill Stephenson, “Out of Order”, in One Life Passes for Another, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, section 8, page 272: