flimsy

adj

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!”

   “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.”

   “[T]here always comes a day when the rouſed publick indignation kicks their flimſy edifice down, and ſends its cowardly enemies a-flying.”

   “[…] 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.”

2. Likely to bend or break under pressure; easily damaged; frail, unsubstantial.

   “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: […]”

   “She was wearing the flimsiest blouse and faded jeans.”

3. (figuratively)Of an argument, explanation, etc.: ill-founded, unconvincing, weak; also, unimportant; paltry, trivial.

   “a flimsy excuse”

   “the flimsiest of theories”

   “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.”

   “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.”

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."”

   “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, […]”

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.”

noun

1. (countable, dated, historical, uncountable)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?”

2. (also, attributive, dated, historical, uncountable)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?’[”]”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “'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.”

   “Smiley peered once more at the flimsy which he still clutched in his pudgy hand.”

3. (broadly, countable, dated, historical, slang)A document printed or typed on such paper.

   “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.”

   “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’.”

4. (broadly, countable, dated, historical, slang)A document printed or typed on such paper.

   “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.”

   “THE THIEVES' ALPHABET. […] Q was a Queer-screen, that served as a blind;†† / R was a Reader,‡‡ with flimsies well lined; […]”

5. (broadly, dated, historical, uncountable)A document printed or typed on such paper.

   “[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; […]”

6. (UK, countable, dated, historical, slang, uncountable)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.”

verb

1. (dated, historical, transitive)To make (something) likely to be easily damaged.

   “[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.”

   “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.”

2. (dated, historical, transitive)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.”

   “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.”

   “[…] 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?”

   “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.”

3. (dated, figuratively, historical, transitive)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.”