noun decoration; ornament; beauty.
2. flourish ·noun a flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor.
3. flourish ·noun a fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely decorative figure.
4. flourish ·vi to make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures.
5. flourish ·noun the waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as, the flourish of a sword.
6. flourish ·vt to develop; to make thrive; to expand.
7. flourish ·vi to grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant; a thrive.
8. flourish ·vi to execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude.
9. flourish ·vi to boast; to vaunt; to brag.
10. flourish ·vi to use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery.
11. flourish ·vt to move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish.
12. flourish ·noun a fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical composition; a cal; a fanfare.
13. flourish ·vt to adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish.
14. flourish ·vi to make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, ·etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion.
15. flourish ·vt 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.
xvi. flourish ·vi 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.
xvii. flourish ·noun 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.