Crossword clues for flimsy
flimsy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Flimsy \Flim"sy\, a. [Compar. Flimsier; superl. Flimsiest.] [Cf. W. llymsi naked, bare, empty, sluggish, spiritless. Cf. Limsy.] Weak; feeble; limp; slight; vain; without strength or solidity; of loose and unsubstantial structure; without reason or plausibility; as, a flimsy argument, excuse, objection.
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines.
--Pope.
All the flimsy furniture of a country miss's brain.
--Sheridan.
Syn: Weak; feeble; superficial; shallow; vain.
Flimsy \Flim"sy\, n.
Thin or transfer paper.
A bank note. [Slang, Eng.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1702, of unknown origin, perhaps a metathesis of film (n.) "gauzy covering" + -y (2). Figuratively (of arguments, etc.) from 1750s. Related: Flimsily; flimsiness.
Wiktionary
a. Likely to bend or break under pressure; weak, shaky, flexible, or fragile. n. 1 Thin typing paper used to make multiple copies. 2 (context informal in the plural English) Skimpy underwear.
WordNet
adj. lacking solidity or strength; "a flimsy table"; "flimsy construction"; "a fragile link with the past" [syn: fragile]
having little substance or significance; "a flimsy excuse"; "slight evidence"; "a tenuous argument"; "a thin plot" [syn: slight, tenuous, thin]
very thin and insubstantial; "thin paper"; "flimsy voile"; "light summer dresses" [syn: light]
resembling cardboard especially in flimsiness; "apartments with cardboard walls" [syn: cardboard]
n. a thin strong light-weight translucent paper used especially for making carbon copies [syn: onionskin]
Wikipedia
The flimsy, officially known as the Petrol, Oil and Water can - was a World War II petrol container used by the British Army. They held of fuel, which allowed them to be moved by a single person.
The flimsy was well known for leaking - when used in the North African Campaign, some flimsies leaked 20%, and in some cases over 50% of the fuel they carried over a journey. One quartermaster reported that his gallons of fuel had been reduced to just 30,000 over the journey - and was informed that even this was a "good effort".
The problem with the containers was the crimped or soldered seams, which easily split during transportation, especially over the rocky desert terrain in North Africa. Containers were stacked on top of each other during shipping, and the upper layers crushed those below, resulting in fuel flowing freely in the bilges - with the resulting poisoning and fire risks.
The favoured use by soldiers for the flimsy was as a small stove which could be used to heat meals and tea for the crews. A soldier would cut the flimsy in half, fill the bottom half with petrol-soaked sand, and balance the other half on top, filled with water. This was known as a Benghazi Boiler or Benghazi Burner, after the embattled town of Benghazi.
Usage examples of "flimsy".
It seemed to Smith, upon reading the individual reports, that many of them would have been absolved before their cases got beyond the deputy level, so flimsy were the accusations made against them.
Huld, in all my hundreds of months as an adjudicator, I have never heard such a flimsy excuse.
He straightened himself and shifted his body well forward on the flimsy little aluminium platform and gripped the steering-arm, keeping his elbows well in to his sides.
A lacy bra hugged her taut breasts and glowed a brilliant white against her tawny skin, outlining dark brown nipples and areolas beneath the flimsy material.
Yet here was a life-form, this flimsy, hateful, biped lifeform, flaunting the bright moving bits of itself.
She struggled indefatigably, grunting at each fresh effort, while through the flimsy partition the voice of the Caddles infant wailed.
I do not mean to be understood that, for the sake of the first cost, we should pay no regard to the appearance, or that we should slight our work, or suffer it to be constructed of flimsy or perishable materials: we should not only have an eye to taste and durability, but put in practice the most strict economy.
Biggles realised that this was all very flimsy, yet he could find no satisfactory reason to explain why the man, a French officer, should claim to belong to an Escadrille which events suggested was not his squadron at all.
Were you in bed, asleep and de fenceless, attired in nothing but a flimsy transparent nightgown, when he came for you?
Old Giles Habibula is too old, Jay, too ill and lame, to be running through black and filthy rat-holes on his knees, and dancing up and down flimsy little ladders in the dark.
There the local kago bearers sat around a fire in their encampment of flimsy shacks, drinking sake while they waited for customers.
And that is how I introduced her, as one of the other parents, to Hans Krone, who stood waiting at the foot of the flimsy short stairs that had been rolled up to the plane.
Caesar had ordered specially built along the Liger River and then sent out into the open ocean to do battle with the two hundred and twenty solid-oak sailing ships of the Veneti, who thought the Roman vessels ludicrous with their oars and their flimsy pine hulls, their low prows and poops.
These were the vessels Caesar had ordered specially built along the Liger River and then sent out into the open ocean to do battle with the two hundred and twenty solid-oak sailing ships of the Veneti, who thought the Roman vessels ludicrous with their oars and their flimsy pine hulls, their low prows and poops.
The line seemed flimsy and fragile, strung as it was between spaceship and moonlet, two objects that floated, resting on no support, in empty three-dimensional space.