Flash

How to spell flash

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flash

What does flash mean?

1. verbTo shine or appear suddenly and briefly with bright light.
2. nounA sudden brief burst of light, or a very short moment.
3. adjectiveOstentatiously expensive or showy in appearance.

Flash in a sentence

• verb

  The warning light will flash when the printer runs out of ink.

• noun

  A bright flash from the welder lit up the workshop.

• adjective

  He turned up to the reunion in a flash sports car.

• verb

  Lightning began to flash across the sky as the storm rolled in.

• noun

  The whole accident was over in a flash.

• adjective

  The bar had a flash new interior that cost a fortune.

Where does flash come from?

Language of origin: Other

Flash first appears in Middle English around the late 1300s as the verb 'flasshen', which originally meant to dash or splash water about, a sense still echoed in the way a wave can flash against a hull. Most scholars regard the word as imitative in origin, coined to mimic the sudden sound and motion of liquid striking a surface, rather than borrowed from another language. Over the following centuries the meaning shifted from sudden movement of water to sudden movement of light, so that by the 1500s a flash described a brief, brilliant burst of flame or brightness. From there it spread into figurative use, giving us a flash of insight and a flash of anger, and later the photographer's flash and the breaking news flash. Because the word is a short, native-style root with a single straightforward spelling, the only thing to remember is the double 's' and the 'fl' opening that links it to related sound words like splash and dash.

How the word is built

• flash (a single root of imitative origin; no prefix or suffix)