flam

17th century; from flim-flam,[1] itself perhaps from a dialectal word or Scandinavian; compare Old Norse flim (“lampoon, mockery”).[2]

flam (countable and uncountable, plural flams)

1. A freak or whim; an idle fancy.
2. (archaic) A falsehood; a lie; an illusory pretext

   Synonyms: deception, delusion

   • 1692

     All pretences to the contrary are nothing but cant and cheat, flam and delusion.[1]

   • South

     a perpetual abuse and flam upon posterity

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

1. (obsolete) To deceive with a falsehood.
   • South

     God is not to be flammed off with lies.

Imitative.

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.

• flam paradiddle, flamadiddle

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

1. (drumming) To play (notes as) a flam.
   • 1923, Edward B. Straight, The Straight System of Modern Drumming: The "Natural Way" to Play Drums, page 10:

     We will commence to flam the notes now, as most of them are flammed when you play a March.

   • 1975, George Shipway, Free Lance, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P (→ISBN):

     Drums ruffled and flammed.

• FMLA

flam m (plural flams)

1. flan (custard dessert)

flam (plural flams)

1. flame