flimflam.

1. Insincere or nonsensical talk used to mislead people or make something dubious sound convincing.

2. A deceptive scheme or act of fraud intended to take advantage of someone.

3. To cheat someone through deception, often by persuading them to part with money.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• sales flimflam
• dismiss as flimflam
• a stream of flimflam

On the page

The contract's promises turned out to be sales flimflam.

She cut through his flimflam by asking for the receipts.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated prose. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Noun singular flimflam; plural flimflams. Mass use where indicated by sense. Verb: flimflam; flimflams; flimflammed; flimflammed; flimflamming. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct dictionary reading: deceptive nonsense; deception/fraud; transitive verb swindle/cheat, often money. Flimflammed/flimflamming require final-m doubling. Empty talk without deceit is not treated as automatically flimflam. Individual usefulness checked for a precise literary, narrative, dialogue or critical function. Definitions and examples are original; commonness is an editorial estimate. Mood and intensity apply only to inherent qualities of the specific sense. Writing functions: dishonest persuasive patter, a confidence trick or fraudulent scheme. Third-person singular: flimflams.