flash-bang n. an explosive device that emits noise and light but is not intended to cause damage. Editorial Note: Flash-bang grenade is the full, more common, form. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
Tom Clancy uses this word alot in his earlier books.
Also a commonly used term in theatrical and film special effects.