flummery
/ˈflʌməɹi/noun, interjection
flummery is a noun meaning “A custard; any of several bland, gelatinous foodstuffs, usually made from stewed fruit and thickened with oatmeal, cornstarch or flour” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-L-U-M-M-E-R-Y, and it appears about once in every 35 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of flummery is flummeries.
What does flummery mean?
noun
- 1
A custard; any of several bland, gelatinous foodstuffs, usually made from stewed fruit and thickened with oatmeal, cornstarch or flour.
- 2
A slightly tart, jelly-like food of Welsh origin, made from extensively boiling oats, then boiling down the liquid extracted from it.
- 3
Empty or meaningless talk, especially when used to flatter.
- 4
Pretentious trappings, useless ornaments used to impress.
- 5
Deceptive or blustering speech.
interjection
- 1
An expression of contemptuous disbelief.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce flummery?
- /ˈflʌməɹi/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-flummery.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of flummery
- flummeries plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is flummery?
Flummery appears about once in every 35 million words in written English, the 182,517th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does flummery come from?
Borrowed from Welsh llymru (“a sour jelly derived from boiled oatmeal”), of uncertain origin, perhaps related to llymrig (“slippery”). For phonetic development, compare origin of Floyd.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).