Word.ws English Dictionary

flam

/flæm/

flam noun: a freak or whim; an idle fancy.

Noun (1)

flam (countable and uncountable, plural flams)

  1. A freak or whim; an idle fancy.
  2. (archaic) A falsehood; a lie; an illusory pretext
    • all Pretences, or Pleas of Conscience, to the contrary, are nothing but Cant and Cheat, Flam and Delusion.1692, Robert South, "A Further Account of the Nature and Measures of Conscience", in Forty Eight Sermons and Discourses on Several Subjects and Occasions (published 1697)
    • a perpetual abuse and flam upon posterity1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London
    Synonyms:
    deception, delusion

Verb (1)

flam (third-person singular simple present flams, present participle flamming, simple past and past participle flammed)

  1. (obsolete) To deceive with a falsehood.
    • God is not to be flammed off with Lyes.1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London

Noun (2)

flam (plural flams)

  1. (drumming) Two taps (a grace note followed by a full-volume tap) played very close together in order to sound like one slightly longer note.

Verb (2)

flam (third-person singular simple present flams, present participle flamming, simple past and past participle flammed)

  1. (ambitransitive, drumming) To play (notes as) a flam.
    • We will commence to flam the notes now, as most of them are flammed when you play a March.1923, Edward B. Straight, The Straight System of Modern Drumming: The "Natural Way" to Play Drums, page 10
    • Drums ruffled and flammed.1975, George Shipway, Free Lance, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P, →ISBN

flam meaning in Urdu

flam in Urdu

دھن, خبط, جھوٹ, بہانہ

Synonyms of flam

Forms of flam

Noun
pluralflams
Verb
third-person singular presentflams
present participleflamming
past participleflammed
pastflammed

Origin of flam

17th century; from flim-flam, itself perhaps from a dialectal word or Scandinavian; compare Old Norse flim (“lampoon, mockery”).

Imitative.

Words formed from flam

Phrases with flam

Words that rhyme with flam

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about flam

What does flam mean?
Flam means a freak or whim; an idle fancy.
What is flam in Urdu?
Flam in Urdu is دھن, خبط, جھوٹ. See Flam meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is flam?
Flam can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce flam?
Flam is pronounced /flæm/.
What is the plural of flam?
The plural of flam is flams.

Words near flam in the dictionary

  1. flakka
  2. flaks
  3. flaky
  4. flaky pastries
  5. flaky pastry
  6. flam
  7. flam paradiddle
  8. flam paradiddles
  9. flam-new
  10. flamadiddle
  11. flamadiddles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flam (page history and authors); flam (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-flam.wav.

Cite this entry: “flam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.