Calling someone or something a “flash in the pan” is a lot like when parents say, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” People use this idiom in reference to anything that initially shows great promise, only to fall flat in the end. For instance, it can be used to describe a band whose second album is a disappointment compared to its first, or an exciting business idea that fails to produce a quality product.
But before it developed an idiomatic meaning, “flash in the pan” had a literal usage that referred to the way old firearms operated — specifically the flintlock musket. This 16th-century gun featured a little pan that contained the gunpowder. But these guns were unreliable, and it was common for the weapon to fire without discharging any ammunition. In the case of such a misfire, the gunpowder would still ignite — and that was known as a flash in the pan.
It wasn’t until the early 1800s that this phrase was used more figuratively. The Oxford English Dictionary points to an example from 1809, found in an English translation of a French novel titled Adventures of Gil Blas:“I was not remiss in composing a fine compliment..with which I meant to launch out on her part; but it was just so much flash in the pan.” Concurrently, literal uses of the phrase became less common as archaic muskets were replaced with more modern firearms that lacked the gunpowder pan.
One of the most oft-repeated rumors about this phrase is that the “flash” is related to panning for gold during the gold rush of the mid-19th century. But the musket origin story is more likely to be true, given the much earlier usage of the phrase — though that’s not to say it wasn’t repeated among prospectors.
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