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A four flush (also flush draw) is a poker hand that is one card short of being a full flush. Four flushing refers to empty boasting or unsuccessful bluffing, and a four flusher is a person who makes empty boasts or bluffs when holding a four flush. Four flusher can also refer to a welcher, piker, or braggart. This pejorative term originated in the 19th century when bluffing poker players misrepresented that they had a flush—a poker hand with five cards all of one suit—when they only had four cards of one suit. Optimal strategies for bluffing or folding when holding a four flush have been explored extensively in poker strategy books.
In media
The first Governor of Oklahoma, Charles N. Haskell, denounced President and political opponent Theodore Roosevelt, calling him a "four flusher".
Metro Pictures released a comedy titled The Four-Flusher in 1919. Several other films have used the term in their titles.
The 1922 Harold Lloyd silent film Dr. Jack the phrase "a four-flusher" is used to describe the doctor in charge of "The Sick-Little-Well-Girl" in the city.
In the 1941 movie, Hellzapoppin' the character Pepi (played by Mischa Auer) is called a four flusher.
In the 1945 film Detour Tom Neal's character calls another character a four-flusher. (The other character is named Charlie Haskell Jr., echoing the name of the Oklahoma governor mentioned above.)
In the 1948 film Homecoming starring Clark Gable, one of the characters calls Gable's character a "four flusher".
The Doobie Brothers included the song "Double Dealin' Four Flusher" in their 1975 album Stampede.
The Four Flusher is the name of an American comedy written in 1925.
A Popeye cartoon released in 1954 was titled "Floor Flusher", as a pun on four flusher.
In the Disney film The Jungle Book (1967 film), Bagheera calls Baloo a 'four-flusher' when he sees that Baloo is still alive after believing that he was dead.
In 2014 a screenplay by the name of FourFlush was written by Harley Evseichik
The phrase was used frequently by screenwriter John Hughes as something of a trademark. In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark refers to his boss as "four flushing" in his tirade over his corporate Christmas present; in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York it is used by the mafia boss Johnny in the fictional film Angels with Even Filthier Souls; and in Uncle Buck, a quite drunk Pooter the Clown calls Buck a four flusher when ordered to leave the family home, which results in Buck punching the clown right in the face.