also flash-light, 1886, "on-and-off signal light in a light-house, etc.," from flash, v. + light, n.. As the word for a photographer's light-emitting preparation, 1892 (flash-lamp in this sense is by 1890). From 1905 as as a handheld, pocket-sized electric illumination device, the American English word for what the British might call an electric torch.