Flamming

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Currently deceiving or tricking someone through a falsehood or a clever bit of trickery
2. Using deception or a cunning pretense to fool or cheat another person at the moment
3. Engaging in the act of misleading someone with a false story or an artful ruse

Etymology: "Flamming" is the present participle of "flam", a verb meaning to deceive or trick someone with false talk. The verb entered English in the 17th century, and its ancestor is the older "flim-flam", a playful word for nonsense or a cheat. That in turn may come from a dialect word, or from Scandinavian sources, where Old Norse "flim" meant mockery or a lampooning jibe. The sound of "flam" is itself part of the story. Like many words built on a repeated or bouncing pattern, "flim-flam" seems to have been formed imitatively, from sounds that suggest something light, flimsy and not quite genuine. The shortened "flam" kept that sense of cheap trickery, so a flamming speaker is one who is spinning a plausible-sounding line that does not hold up.

Synonyms: deceiving, tricking