flame

[at MIT, orig. from the phrase `flaming asshole'] 1. vi. To post an email message intended to insult and provoke. 2. vi. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude. 3. vt. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with hostility at a particular person or people. 4. n. An instance of flaming. When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy, one might tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or "Stop all that flamage!" to try to get them to cool down (so to speak).

The term may have been independently invented at several different places. It has been reported from MIT, Carleton College and RPI (among many other places) from as far back as 1969, and from the University of Virginia in the early 1960s.

It is possible that the hackish sense of `flame' is much older than that. The poet Chaucer was also what passed for a wizard hacker in his time; he wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, the most advanced computing device of the day. In Chaucer's "Troilus and Cressida", Cressida laments her inability to grasp the proof of a particular mathematical theorem; her uncle Pandarus then observes that it's called "the fleminge of wrecches." This phrase seems to have been intended in context as "that which puts the wretches to flight" but was probably just as ambiguous in Middle English as "the flaming of wretches" would be today. One suspects that Chaucer would feel right at home on Usenet.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Flame (?), n. [OE. flame, flaume, flaumbe, OF. flame, flambe, F. flamme, fr. L. flamma, fr. flamma, fr. flagrare to burn. See Flagrant, and cf. Flamneau, Flamingo.]

1.

A stream of burning vapor or gas, emitting light and heat; darting or streaming fire; a blaze; a fire.

2.

Burning zeal or passion; elevated and noble enthusiasm; glowing imagination; passionate excitement or anger.

Milton.

Where flames refin'd in breasts seraphic glow. Pope.

Smit with the love of sister arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame. Pope.

3.

Ardor of affection; the passion of love.

Coleridge.

4.

A person beloved; a sweetheart.

Thackeray.

Syn. -- Blaze; brightness; ardor. See Blaze.

Flame bridge, a bridge wall. See Bridge, n., 5. -- Flame color, brilliant orange or yellow. B. Jonson. -- Flame engine, an early name for the gas engine. -- Flame manometer, an instrument, invented by Koenig, to obtain graphic representation of the action of the human vocal organs. See Manometer. -- Flame reaction Chem., a method of testing for the presence of certain elements by the characteristic color imparted to a flame; as, sodium colors a flame yellow, potassium violet, lithium crimson, boracic acid green, etc. Cf. Spectrum analysis, under Spectrum. -- Flame tree Bot., a tree with showy scarlet flowers, as the Rhododendron arboreum in India, and the Brachychiton acerifolium of Australia.

© Webster 1913.

Flame, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Flamed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Flaming.] [OE. flamen, flaumben, F. flamber, OF. also, flamer. See Flame, n.]

1.

To burn with a flame or blaze; to burn as gas emitted from bodies in combustion; to blaze.

The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again. Shak.

2.

To burst forth like flame; to break out in violence of passion; to be kindled with zeal or ardor.

He flamed with indignation. Macaulay.

© Webster 1913.

Flame, v. t.

To kindle; to inflame; to excite.

And flamed with zeal of vengeance inwardly. Spenser.

© Webster 1913.