Meaning of 'flourish' (Webster Dictionary)
- A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor.
- Decoration; ornament; beauty.
- 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.
- A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely
decorative figure.
- A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of
triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical composition;
a cal; a fanfare.
- The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as,
the flourish of a sword.
- To grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a
healthy growing plant; a thrive.
- 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.
- To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical
figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery.
- To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton
movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with
fantastic and irregular motion.
- To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write
graceful, decorative figures.
- To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music,
by way of ornament or prelude.
- To boast; to vaunt; to brag.
- To adorn with flowers orbeautiful figures, either
natural or artificial; to ornament with anything showy; to embellish.
- 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.
- To move in bold or irregular figures; to swing about
in circles or vibrations by way of show or triumph; to brandish.
- To develop; to make thrive; to expand.
Meaning of 'flourish' (Princeton's WordNet)
Meaning (1):
- (music) a short lively tune played on brass instruments
Example in sentence:- he entered to a flourish of trumpets;
- her arrival was greeted with a rousing fanfare
Meaning (2):
- a showy gesture
Example in sentence:- she entered with a great flourish
Meaning (3):
- grow vigorously
Example in sentence:- business is booming;
- The deer population in this town is thriving
Meaning (4):
- move or swing back and forth
Meaning (5):
- make steady progress; be at the high point in one's career or reach a high point in historical significance or importance
Example in sentence:- The new student is thriving
Definition
[ n.]