A flash in the pan
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
A conspicuous early success or display that quickly fails to produce lasting results. Usually dismissive. The pan is part of a firearm's ignition system, not a prospector's gold pan. Regional use: British firearms origin; now international English.
Origin
A flintlock's priming powder sat in a small pan. When that powder flashed but failed to ignite the main charge, the weapon produced light and smoke without firing; Elkanah Settle used the literal expression in 1687. The familiar figurative sense of a brief, unproductive or short-lived success became established later, so the seventeenth-century evidence documents the physical source rather than every nuance of today's idiom. Gold-panning stories are anachronistic.
Research Sources
Variants
- Flash-in-the-pan
- No more than a flash in the pan
Usage Examples
- Critics called the singer a flash in the pan, but her third album proved them wrong.
- The sudden rise in sales was a flash in the pan caused by one viral post.
- A single lively meeting will be a flash in the pan unless volunteers receive support.