flashback

UK/ˈflæʃ.bæk/US/ˈflæʃ.bæk/

nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,054 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: flashbacks

A flashback is a sudden vivid return of a past moment. A flashback to the crash, suffer flashbacks, the film opens with a flashback.

In trauma it is not a memory but a re-experience — the person feels it happening now rather than recalling it, which is what makes it so distressing and is a recognised symptom. In storytelling a flashback is a scene set earlier than the main action.

Definitions of flashback

1nounflashbackA sudden vivid return of a past moment.C1
“The smell of smoke gave him a sudden flashback to the fire that destroyed his home.”

flashback is a return of the past.

Where it comes from

Flash plus back, first in film in the 1910s and later borrowed by psychiatry.

From flash + back.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Thinking & Memory, Mental Health & Wellbeing

Practise this word

flashback in the wild

A flashback, more formally known as analepsis, is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story.
Flashback (narrative)
In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started.
Flashback (narrative)
Both characters appear by means of a flashback by Tuvok, taking place during the events depicted in the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Flashback (Star Trek: Voyager)
The episode won praise among critics and viewers alike, with viewers calling for further flashback episodes to be made.
Episode 6550
Executive Producer Chris Clenshaw signalled his interest in making further flashback episodes.
Episode 6550

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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