Flashing

How to spell flashing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce flashing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flashing mean?

1. verbProducing sudden, brief bursts of bright light, often repeatedly.
2. nounThin strips of weatherproof metal fitted at roof joints and around chimneys to keep water out.

Flashing in a sentence

• verb

  The ambulance sped past with its lights flashing in the dark.

• noun

  The leak was traced to rusted flashing around the chimney.

• verb

  A flashing warning on the dashboard told her the fuel was low.

• noun

  The roofer replaced the lead flashing where the two slopes met.

Where does flashing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word flash appeared in Middle English around the 1300s, at first describing a splash or sudden rush of water before it settled onto its modern meaning of a sudden burst of light. It is widely thought to be imitative in origin, that is, a word coined to echo the quick, sharp action it names, much like splash, dash, and crash. The present participle flashing carried the sense of giving out sudden light, and from the 1700s builders adopted it as a noun for the thin strips of metal fitted at roof joints, because the polished sheets caught and threw back the light. Spelling-wise the trap is simple but real: the short vowel forces the doubled consonant pattern only in related forms, while flashing itself keeps a single sh and the plain -ing ending. The cluster sh sitting against the final -ing is the part writers occasionally fumble.

How the word is built

• flash (sudden burst of light)
• -ing (present participle / noun suffix)