FLOURISHING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Flourishing

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/flˈərɪʃɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Flourish v. t.

1.

To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish. (Obs.)

2.

To embellish with the flowers of diction; to adorn with rhetorical figures; to grace with ostentatious eloquence; to set off with a parade of words. (Obs.) "Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth flourish the deceit."

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."

4.

To develop; to make thrive; to expand. (Obs.) "Bottoms of thread... which with a good needle, perhaps may be flourished into large works."

Flourish v. i. (past & past part. flourished; pres. part. flourishing)

1.

To grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant; a thrive. "A tree thrives and flourishes in a kindly... soil."

2.

To be prosperous; to increase in wealth, honor, comfort, happiness, or whatever is desirable; to thrive; to be prominent and influental; specifically, of authors, painters, etc., to be in a state of activity or production. "When all the workers of iniquity do flourish." "Bad men as frequently prosper and flourish, and that by the means of their wickedness." "We say Of those that held their heads above the crowd, They flourished then or then."

3.

To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery. "They dilate... and flourish long on little incidents."

4.

To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. "Impetuous spread The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head."

5.

To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures.

6.

To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude. "Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?"

7.

To boast; to vaunt; to brag.

See images of 'Flourishing'

Etymology of 'Flourishing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Flourishing" Quotes from Famous Books

... friend whose name agrees with thy increase How fit arrival art thou of the Spring! For when each branch hath left his flourishing, And green-locked Summer's shady pleasures cease: She makes the Winter's storms repose in peace, And spends her franchise on each living thing: The daisies sprout, the little birds do sing, Herbs, gums, and plants do vaunt of their release. So when that all our English Wits lay ...

— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... you will look on your map of Asia, you will see, adjoining Hindostan, at the east, a country called Burmah. This is another land of idols. Here the "Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions" have one of the most interesting and flourishing missions in the world. The people of Burmah are, if possible, still further removed from divine knowledge than the people of India. They are in reality atheists, or, in other words, people who do not believe in a creator or preserver of the world. But still ...

— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... frames to tingle. Their characteristic gravity and decorum vanished. They laughed, they danced, they sang, they yelled like a troop of incarnate fiends! Then they rushed in a body towards their prisoners, and began a species of war-dance round them, flourishing their tomahawks and knives close to their faces as if they were about to slay them; shrieking and howling in the most unearthly manner, and using all those cruel devices that are practised by Red Indians to terrify those unfortunates whom ...

— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... soil is best indicated by the luxuriant growth of its productions. For the hills (except a few toward the sea, which are covered with smaller bushes) are one continued forest of lofty trees, flourishing with a vigour almost superior to anything that imagination can conceive, and affording an august prospect to those who are delighted with the grand and ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... shadow round itself, while the saints are sucked into the background, their accessories only, staff and gridiron, allowed to assert themselves by a sharp shadow; a marvellous vision of white heavenly roses, their pointed buds and sharp spines flourishing on martyrs' blood and incense, grown into the close lips and long eyes, the virginal body and thin hands of Mary. From these reliefs we come to the compositions, group inside group, all shelving into portico and forest vista, of the pulpit of Sta. Croce, the perspective bevelling ...

— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

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