To flash it about, or to cut a flash or dash, verbal phr. (common).—To make a display; to live conspicuously and extravagantly.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 220. He flashed it about a good deal for a long time, going from one place to another. Sometimes he was a lord, at others an earl.
To go flashing it, verb. phr. (venery).—To have sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Greens and Ride.
Flash-Case (or -Crib, -House, -Drum, -Ken, -Panny, etc.).—1. A house frequented by thieves, as a tavern, lodging-house, fence (q.v.).
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Flash-ken, c., a house where thieves use, and are connived at.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1821. D. Haggart, Life, ‘Glossary,’ p. 172. Flash-kain, a house for receiving [[12]]stolen goods. [Haggart’s spelling, being that of the respectable Edinburgh lawyer who took down his ‘confessions’ is generally misleading and inaccurate.]
1828. Smeeton, Doings in London, p. 39. It is a game in very great vogue among the macers, who congregate nightly at the flash-houses.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 50 (ed. 1854). There is one Peggy Lobkins who keeps a public house, a sort of flash-ken called ‘The Mug’ in Thames Court.
1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (ed. 1840), p. 271. I’ve been to all the flash-cases in town, and can hear nothing of him or his wives.… Ibid, p. 135. ‘The Black Lion!’ echoed Terence, ‘I know the house well; by the same token that it’s a flash-crib.’