The thumb cut requires the flourisher to reach across the deck and use their thumb to raise half the deck upwards.

If a flourisher can successfully execute this cut with both hands, he/she can tackle more advanced cuts that require more dexterity.

Card flourishes are visual displays of skill performed with playing cards, designed to show the skill or manual dexterity of a 'flourisher'.

A flourisher of language, Shammas is perturbed by references to "the flourishes of Arab rhetoric," by speculations that through poetry " 'Arab dignity and honor' shine in the mind with a radiant life of their own," that "vivid hallucination becomes the act."