flash in the pan
4
7.2
- idiom
- /flæʃ ɪn ðə pæn/
- Informal
:
fuego de paja
- The singer's debut album was a flash in the pan, gaining popularity quickly but soon fading from the charts.
It's really a flash in the pan so far.
- It's really a flash in the pan so far.
- And that's all we're going to be is a bunch of voyeuristic flash in the pan stories.
- Is this sort of a flash in the pan kind of thing or is this worth paying attention to?
- And then he's, you know, just a sort of flash in the pan.
- And a lot of people thought that the microbiome was, you know, just a few years, flash in the pan, a few fancy mouse studies.
- And listen, if they don't have the skills to back up their splashy PR coverage, they, they become a flash in the pan, one hit wonder, they will go away.
- I, I think that the, the, the idea that technology was like a flash in the pan that just happened because of COVID is, is a fiction.
- And if you do it incorrectly, you basically just fizzle because that was a a flash in the pan.
- Here's my advice, be yourself, be honest about your ability, prepare so that you are not a flash in the pan.
- And said at the end of the day that the joke was was on Michael Foot because he thought Thatcher would be a flash in the pan.
Examples
-
And I think when people go look at the show, I think it stands up as a whole, and I think that its legacy is that it wasn't just a flash in the pan, it wasn't just a second effort that it had integrity.
-
We must show them that last year was not just a flash in the pan, and that we are not going away.
Blog text (32) -
It's really a flash in the pan so far.
-
Is this sort of a flash in the pan kind of thing or is this worth paying attention to?
-
Is it just a flash in the pan?
Blog text (19) -
You're not just a flash in the pan.
-
The Mavericks were a flash in the pan for a season or two in the late '80s.
Blog text (31) -
Maintain long-term investments instead of getting caught up in flash-in-the-pan options that may fizzle out very quickly.
Blog text (1) -
Voters need to exert consistent, prolonged effort over years and decades, not a flash-in-the-pan interest that fades out in a season or a year.
Blog text (20) -
Anyone thinking libraries will return one day to being sanctuaries of books and quiet places—that all this technology stuff is a flash in the pan—will be gravely disappointed.
Academic text (2014)
Synonyms
27
4.5
A short news event that gets a lot of public attention
A thing that is very popular for a short time and then forgotten
A person or thing that becomes very famous very quickly
How Lasting
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituent 'flash' clearly conveys a very brief moment, so a B1 learner who knows the words might infer the transient or short-lived aspect; however, the full idiomatic sense — a brief success or attention that fails to last — and especially the negative/lacking continuation component is not predictable from 'pan' (a cooking vessel) or the literal combination. The expression rests on an idiomatic historical image (a musket 'flash in the pan') and is not transparently compositional across languages, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Flash in the pan comes from old muskets when the gunpowder in the pan made a bright flash but failed to fire the bullet. So the phrase described a quick show with no result, and today it means 'a short success that does not last'.