3. To move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish. And flourishes his blade in spite of me. Shak.
4. To develop; to make thrive; to expand. [Obs.] Bottoms of thread . . . which with a good needle, perhaps flourished into large works. Bacon.
FLOURISH
Flour"ish, n.; pl. Flourishes (.
1. A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. [Archaic] The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never had the like. Howell.
2. Decoration; ornament; beauty. The flourish of his sober youth Was the pride of naked truth. Crashaw.
3. Something made or performed in a fanciful, wanton, or vaunting manner, by way of ostentation, to excite admiration, etc.; ostentatious embellishment; ambitious copiousness or amplification; parade of wordas, a flourish of rhetoric or of wit. He lards with flourishes his long harangue. Dryden.
4. A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative
figure.
The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible curiously printed.
Boyle.
5. A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical composition; a cal; a fanfare. A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums! Shak.
6. The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the fluorish of a sword.
FLOURISHER
Flour"ish*er, n.