- (v.i.) To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude.
- (v.i.) To grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant; a thrive.
- (v.i.) To make bold and sweeping, fanciful or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion.
- (n.) 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 words and figures; show; as, a flourish of rhetoric or of wit.
- (v.t.) To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish.
- (n.) A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative figure.
- (v.i.) To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery.
- (n.) Decoration; ornament; beauty.
- (v.t.) To move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish.
- (v.i.) To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures.
- (v.i.) To boast; to vaunt; to brag.
- (n.) A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor.
- (n.) The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the flourish of a sword.
- (v.i.) 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.
- (v.t.) 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.
- (n.) A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical composition; a cal; a fanfare.
- (v.t.) To develop; to make thrive; to expand.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
| APA | Webster's. (2011). flourish. Retrieved September 24, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/flourish/definitions/2008831 |
| Chicago | Webster's. 2011. "flourish" http://smartdefine.org/flourish/definitions/2008831 (accessed September 24, 2026). |
| Harvard | Webster's 2011, flourish, Smart Define, viewed 24 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/flourish/definitions/2008831>. |
| MLA | Webster's. "flourish" 27 May 2011. Web. 24 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/flourish/definitions/2008831> |