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Flourish   /flˈərɪʃ/   Listen
verb
Flourish  v. t.  
1.
To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish. (Obs.)
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."
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."
4.
To develop; to make thrive; to expand. (Obs.) "Bottoms of thread... which with a good needle, perhaps may be flourished into large works."


Flourish  v. i.  (past & past part. flourished; pres. part. flourishing)  
1.
To grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant; a thrive. "A tree thrives and flourishes in a kindly... soil."
2.
To be prosperous; to increase in wealth, honor, comfort, happiness, or whatever is desirable; to thrive; to be prominent and influental; specifically, of authors, painters, etc., to be in a state of activity or production. "When all the workers of iniquity do flourish." "Bad men as frequently prosper and flourish, and that by the means of their wickedness." "We say Of those that held their heads above the crowd, They flourished then or then."
3.
To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery. "They dilate... and flourish long on little incidents."
4.
To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. "Impetuous spread The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head."
5.
To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures.
6.
To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude. "Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?"
7.
To boast; to vaunt; to brag.


noun
Flourish  n.  (pl. flourishes)  
1.
A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. (Archaic) "The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never had the like."
2.
Decoration; ornament; beauty. "The flourish of his sober youth Was the pride of naked truth."
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."
4.
A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative figure. "The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible curiously printed."
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!"
6.
The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the flourish of a sword.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Flourish" Quotes from Famous Books



... hot a room is, or how much the air is exhausted, when we have been sitting in it for an hour and a half. But if we came into it from outside we should feel the difference. Styrian peasants thrive and fatten upon arsenic, and men may flourish upon all iniquity and evil, and conscience will say never a word. Take care of that delicate balance within you; and see that you do not tamper with it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Major would say, with a flourish of his walking-stick, 'is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you'd be none the worse for it. Old Joe, Sir, needn't look far for a wile even now, if he was on the look-out; but he's hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe—he's tough, Sir, tough, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Flourish and alarums sounded for a quadrille. Each of the semi-circle, firmly elbowing his neighbor, begged the dance of Miss Betty; but Tom was himself again, and laid a long, strong hand on Madrillon's shoulder, pressed him ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... practice of agriculture until suitable leguminous crops are found and made part of the crop system. It is notable that over the whole of the dry-farm territory of this and other countries wild leguminous plants flourish. That is, nitrogen-gathering plants are at work on the deserts. The farmer upsets this natural order of things by cropping the land with wheat and wheat only, so long as the land will produce profitably. ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... opposites should have been enough to damn it in the eyes of a public intent upon classifying everything by means of labels and of making everything so classified stick to its label like grim death. Yet the unclassified may flourish, and does, when its merit is beyond dispute. Mrs. Craddock appeared fully a decade before its time, when Victorian influences were still alive, and the modern idea for well to do women to have something to justify their existence was still in the nature of a novelty. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton


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