flourishing
AdjectiveWordNet 3.0
Adjective (1)
- very lively and profitable“flourishing businesses”“a palmy time for stockbrokers”“a prosperous new business”“doing a roaring trade”“a thriving tourist center”“did a thriving business in orchids”Synonyms: boomingpalmyprosperingprosperousroaringthriving
Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)
1.To grow luxuriantly; to increase and enlarge, as a healthy growing plant; a thrive. [1913 Webster]
A tree thrives and flourishes in a kindly . . . soil.— Bp. Horne.[1913 Webster]
2.To be prosperous; to increase in wealth, honor, comfort, happiness, or whatever is desirable; to thrive; to be prominent and influental; specifically, of authors, painters, etc., to be in a state of activity or production. [1913 Webster]
When all the workers of iniquity do flourish.— Ps. xcii 7[1913 Webster]
Bad men as frequently prosper and flourish, and that by the means of their wickedness.— Nelson.[1913 Webster]
We say Of those that held their heads above the crowd, They flourished then or then.— Tennyson.[1913 Webster]
3.To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions; to be flowery. [1913 Webster]
They dilate . . . and flourish long on little incidents.— J. Watts.[1913 Webster]
4.To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion. [1913 Webster]
Impetuous spread The stream, and smoking flourished o'er his head.— Pope.[1913 Webster]
5.To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures. [1913 Webster]
6.To execute an irregular or fanciful strain of music, by way of ornament or prelude. [1913 Webster]
Why do the emperor's trumpets flourish thus?— Shak.[1913 Webster]
7.To boast; to vaunt; to brag. --Pope. [1913 Webster]