1865. Morning Star (‘The Flaneur’). A London correspondent, who, by the aid of flimsy misleads a vast number of provincial papers.
1870. London Figaro, 23 Sept. ‘Special Lining.’ We do not think it is [[25]]altogether worthy of the high repute of the Pall Mall Gazette to publish flimsy as a special correspondence.
1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xviii. The sharpest of the reporters had his flimsy up in a minute, and took notes of the proceedings.
Flinders, subs. (common).—Pieces infinitesimally small.
1870. New York Evening Sun, 24 May. Report of Speech of Mr. Chandler. Let us knock the British crown to flinders; let us arrange for some one or two hundred thousand British graves forthwith, and cabbage the whole boundless continent without any further procrastination.
Fling, subs. (colloquial).—1. A fit of temper.
2. (common).—A jeer; a jibe; a personal allusion or attack.
1592. Shakspeare, I Henry VI., iii., 1. Then would I have a fling at Winchester.
1888. Star, 10 Oct. Those writers who had a fling at Iddesleigh after his poor running at Stockton will have to take their words back some day.
1890. Pall Mall Gazette, 24 July, p. 4. col. 2. As the disputants warmed up, little personal flings were of course introduced.