1750. Ozell’s Rabelais, vol. V., p. 247. Glibly swallow down every flim-flam story that’s told them.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. X., ch. xix. I wish you’d mind the child—it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that flim-flam book, which cost me one pound one.
Flimp, verb. (thieves’)—1. To hustle or rob. To put on the flimp = to rob on the highway. For synonyms, see Crack and Prig.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, p. 111. To take a man’s watch is to flimp him, it can only be done in a crowd, one gets behind and pushes him in the back, while the other in front is robbing him.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 445, s.v.
2. (venery).—To copulate. For synonyms, see Ride.
Flimping, subs. (thieves’).—Stealing from the person.
1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulgar Tongue, p. 38. He told me as Bill had flimped a yack.
1862. Cornhill Mag., vol. vi., p. 651. We are going a-flimping, buzzing, cracking, etc.
1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. lx. Flimping is a style of theft which I have never practised, and, consequently of which I know nothing.