7. To boast; to vaunt; to brag. Pope.
Flourish
(Flour"ish), v. t.
1. To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to
embellish. [Obs.] Fenton.
2. To embellish with the flowers of diction; to adorn with rhetorical figures; to grace with ostentatious
eloquence; to set off with a parade of words. [Obs.]
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit.
Shak. 3. To move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to
brandish.
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
Shak. 4. To develop; to make thrive; to expand. [Obs.]
Bottoms of thread . . . which with a good needle, perhaps may be flourished into large works.
Bacon. Flourish
(Flour"ish) n.; pl. Flourishes
1. A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. [Archaic]
The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never had the like.
Howell. 2. Decoration; ornament; beauty.
The flourish of his sober youth
Was the pride of naked truth.
Crashaw. 3. Something made or performed in a fanciful, wanton, or vaunting manner, by way of ostentation, to
excite admiration, etc.; ostentatious embellishment; ambitious copiousness or amplification; parade of words
and figures; show; as, a flourish of rhetoric or of wit.
He lards with flourishes his long harangue.
Dryden. 4. A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative figure.
The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible curiously printed.
Boyle. 5. A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular
musical composition; a cal; a fanfare.
A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!
Shak. 6. The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the flourish of a sword.
