King James Bible Dictionary

FLOURISH, verb intransitive flur'ish. [Latin floresco, from floreo. The primary sense is to open, expand, enlarge, or to shoot out, as in glory, Latin ploro.]

1. To thrive; to grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant. The beech and the maple flourish best in a deep, rich and moist loam.

2. To be prosperous; to increase in wealth or honor.

Bad men as frequently prosper and flourish and that by the means of their wickedness.

When all the workers of iniquity do flourish Psalms 92:7.

3. To grow in grace and in good works; to abound in the consolations of religion.

The righteous shall flourish like the palmtree. Psalms 92:7.

4. To be in a prosperous state; to grow or be augmented. We say agriculture flourishes, commerce flourishes, manufactures flourish

5. To use florid language; to make a display of figures and lofty expressions; to be copious and flowery.

They dilate and flourish long on little incidents.

6. To make bold strokes in writing; to make large and irregular lines; as, to flourish with the pen.

7. To move or play in bold and irregular figures.

Impetuous spread the stream, and smoking, flourished o're his head.

8. In music, to play with bold and irregular notes, or without settled form; as, to flourish on an organ or violin.

9. To boast; to vaunt; to brag.

FLOURISH, verb transitive flur'ish.

1. To adorn with flowers or beautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with any thing showy.

2. To spread out; to enlarge into figures.

3. To move in bold or irregular figures; to move in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish; as, to flourish a sword.

4. 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.

5. To adorn; to embellish.

6. To mark with a flourish or irregular stroke.

The day book and inventory book shall be flourished.

FLOURISH, noun flur'ish.

1. Beauty; showy splendor.

The flourish of his sober youth.

2. Ostentatious embellishment; ambitious copiousness or amplification; parade of words and figures; show; as a flourish of rhetoric; a flourish of wit.

He lards with flourishes his long harangue.

3. Figures formed by bold, irregular lines, or fanciful strokes of the pen or graver; as the flourishes about a great letter.

4. A brandishing; the waving of a weapon or other thing; as the flourish of a sword.

FLOURISHED, participle passive flur'ished. Embellished; adorned with bold and irregular figures or lines; brandished.

FLOURISHER, noun flur'isher.

1. One who flourishes; one who thrives or prospers.

2. One who brandishes.

3. One who adorns with fanciful figures.

FLOURISHING, participle present tense or adjective flur'ishing. Thriving; prosperous; increasing; making a show.

FLOURISHINGLY, adverb flur'ishingly. With flourishes; ostentatiously.