Flourish \Flour"ish\, n.; pl. Flourishes.
   1. A flourishing condition; prosperity; vigor. [Archaic]
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            The Roman monarchy, in her highest flourish, never
            had the like.                         --Howell.
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   2. Decoration; ornament; beauty.
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            The flourish of his sober youth
            Was the pride of naked truth.         --Crashaw.
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   3. 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.
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            He lards with flourishes his long harangue.
                                                  --Dryden.
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   4. A fanciful stroke of the pen or graver; a merely
      decorative figure.
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            The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible
            curiously printed.                    --Boyle.
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   5. A fantastic or decorative musical passage; a strain of
      triumph or bravado, not forming part of a regular musical
      composition; a cal; a fanfare.
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            A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums! --Shak.
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   6. The waving of a weapon or other thing; a brandishing; as,
      the flourish of a sword.
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