All of a flare, adv. phr. (thieves’).—Bunglingly.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, p. 113. Some of the girls at Milberry’s pick pockets at night: while one talks to the man, the other robs him; but they are not dextrous, they pull it out all of a flare.
Flaring, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Excessive: e.g., a flaring lie; flaring drunk; a flaring whore; see Flaming.
Flare-up (or -Out), subs. (popular). An orgie; a fight; an outburst of temper. Also a spree.
1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 Ser. ch. x. Some of our young citizens … got into a flare-up with a party of boatmen that lives in the Mississippi; a desperate row it was too.
1847. Punch, vol. XIII., p. 148, Address at the Opening of a Casino. In for flare-up and frolic let us go, And polk it on the fast fantastic toe.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, I., p. 160. These (hot eel) dealers generally trade on their own capital; but when some have been having a flare-up, and have ‘broke down for stock’ to use the words of my informant, they borrow £1 and pay it back in a week or a fortnight.
1879. Justin M’Carthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xvii. Paulina had a hard struggle many a time to keep down her temper, and not to have what she would have called a flare-out.
English Synonyms.—Barney; batter; bean-feast; beano; breakdown; burst; booze (specifically a drinking-bout); caper; devil’s delight; dust; fanteague; fight; flare; flats-yad (back slang); fly; gig; hay-bag; hell’s delight; high jinks; hooping up; hop; jagg; jamboree; jump; jun-ketting; lark; drive; randan; on the tiles; on the fly; painting the town (American); rampage; razzle-dazzle; reeraw; ructions; shake; shine; spree; sky-wannocking; tear; tear up; toot.
French Synonyms.—La nocerie (popular: une noce à tout casser; or, une noce de bâtons de chaise = a grand jollification); faire des crêpes (= to have a rare spree); badouiller (popular: especially applied to drinking bouts).