flimsy

1. (also attributive, uncountable) Thin typing paper used together with carbon paper in a typewriter to make multiple copies of a document; (countable) a sheet of such paper.Examples: "“‘Pray, miss,’ he said, ‘do not interrupt me. I represent the Press. The Fourth Estate, miss. I’m afraid I shan’t have enough flimsy.’ “Those were his very words, Kate. By flimsy, I learn that he meant writing paper. Do our great poets—does my adored [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson write on ‘flimsy?’[”]"; "I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant's telegram. […] I flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled."; "She dragged the cover off the typewriter with sound and fury, jerked the desk-drawers till they slammed against the drawer-stops, shook the top-sheet carbons and flimsies together as a terrier shakes a rat, and attacked the machine tempestuously."alsoattributivedatedhistoricaluncountable

2. (by extension) A document printed or typed on such paper.Examples: "A perusal of the comments of officers under whom he [Captain Duncan Herbert Stevens] has served as recorded in his “flimsies" indicates that he has almost consistently received high commendation for his service."; "Regulations required a commanding officer to render annual confidential reports on the character and ability of his officers – with particular reference to sobriety – on forms known as ‘flimsies’."broadlycountabledatedhistoricalslang

3. (by extension) A document printed or typed on such paper.Examples: "In English Exchequer-bills full half a million, / Not “kites,” manufactured to cheat and inveigle, / But the right sort of ‘flimsy,’ all sign’d by Monteagle."; "THE THIEVES' ALPHABET. […] Q was a Queer-screen, that served as a blind;†† / R was a Reader,‡‡ with flimsies well lined; […]"broadlycountabledatedhistoricalslang

4. (by extension) A document printed or typed on such paper.Examples: "[page 31] Sub-editors are now hard at work cutting down "flimsy," ramming sheets of "copy" on files, endlessly conferring with perspiring foremen. […] [page 34] The last report from the late debate in the Commons has come in; the last paragraph of interesting news, dropped into the box by a stealthy penny-a-liner, has been eliminated from a mass of flimsy on its probation, and for the most part rejected; […]"broadlydatedhistoricaluncountable

5. (UK, military slang) A hexahedral metal container with a capacity of four imperial gallons (about 18 litres) used by the British Army during World War II to hold fuel.Examples: "But the Q[uartermaster] has ballsed-up T3 patrol's fuel ration; instead of jerry cans we get "flimsies," the notorious four-gallon containers made of metal so thin you can practically puncture it with a fingernail. Flimsies come two to a case, packed in cardboard. Of seventy-six that Collier's crew take down from the Mack, twenty-one are leaking at the seams; eleven have drained half to nil."UKcountabledatedhistoricalslanguncountable

1. (dated or historical) To type or write (text) on a flimsy (“sheet of thin typing paper used together with carbon paper in a typewriter to make multiple copies of a document”) (noun sense 2).Examples: "An interview is not a speech. […] If a man wants to publish an allocution of this kind, he should write it out and give it to me, or anyone else—a newsagency for example—and it will be "flimsied" to most of our English daily papers, whose conductors would, of course, use their own discretion as to how much or how little of it they would use. But in no sense of the word could such a performance be properly classified under the heading of the interview."; "Did you, as a matter of fact, receive pages 55 and 56 at the same time?—I cannot say that I did. / But if you had received them?—I should have flimsied them with this. / As they are not flimsied, what do you say?—All I can presume is that they were not there. I should not have separated one paper from the other, and flimsied one and left the other."; "[…] Mr. Spencer Hughes, the Liberal, is accusing the Independent Labour men of being "blacklegs." Some of them, it seems, have been doing the work of two or three journalists in the House, flimsying and syndicating London Letters and Labour articles and notes in a number of newspapers. Cannot they be peacefully persuaded to attend to their own work, and leave journalism to journalists?"datedhistoricaltransitive

2. (figurative) To treat (someone or something) as paltry or unimportant; to demean, to underestimate.Examples: "What she sacrificed in energy, emotion and integrity, diminished her rather than excelled. […] Teri suddenly saw herself flimsied by bargains she had negotiated too readily."datedfigurativelyhistoricaltransitive