From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishflannelflan‧nel1 /ˈflænl/ noun 1 [uncountable]DCC soft cloth, usually made of cotton or wool, used for making clothes a flannel shirt2 [countable] British EnglishDCB a piece of cloth you use to wash yourself SYN facecloth, washcloth American English3 [uncountable] British English informalPRETEND something that someone says that has no real meaning or does not tell you what you want to know4 → flannels
Examples from the Corpus
flannel• Wearing a new sports jacket and grey flannels under his open raincoat.• How about updating the context, dressing the youths in flannels and baggy pants?• Around her ankle was the pinned flannel.• The line surprises us, for much of the poet's work was a squeezed flannel of disenchantment.• Toby saw him take up the pile of wet flannel from beside the bath and chuck it at his face.flannelflannel2 verb (flannelled, flannelling) [intransitive, transitive] British English PRETENDto say things that have no real meaning in order to avoid answering a question directly or to hide your lack of knowledge→ See Verb tableOrigin flannel (1500-1600) flanen “type of cloth” ((16-19 centuries)), from Welsh gwlanen “woollen cloth” 