flash in the pan

1. 1.

   someone who enjoys transient success but then fails

   Broaderfailure

Questions about flash in the pan

What does flash in the pan mean?

flash in the pan means "someone who enjoys transient success but then fails".

Is flash in the pan a common word?

flash in the pan is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.