flirt
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /flɜːt/
ipa: /flɝt/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t
Forms: form: flirts
Etymology: 1553, from the merger of Early Modern English flirt (“to flick”), flurt (“to mock, jibe, scorn”), and flirt, flurt (“a giddy girl”). Of obscure origin and relation. Apparently related to similar words in Germanic, all of apparently onomatopoeic origin, compare Low German flirt (“a flick of the fingers, a light blow”), Low German flirtje (“a giddy girl”), Low German flirtje (“a flirt”), German Flittchen (“a flirt; tart; hussy”), Norwegian flira (“to giggle, titter”). Compare also Early Modern English jillflirt, gillian flirt, and flirt-gill (“a flirt”), and Scots flird (“a trifling", also, "to jibe, jeer at, talk idly, flirt, flaunt”), which is perhaps from Middle English flerd (“mockery, fraud, deception”), from Old English fleard (“nonsense, vanity, folly, deception”); potentially related to Icelandic flærð (“trickiness, deceit”), Swedish flärd (“vanity, frivolity, flamboyance”), Dutch flard (“tatter, shred”). See flird.
Senses: examples: text: several little flirts and vibrations
ref: 1711 July 8 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, June 27, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 102; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
text: with many a flirt and flutter
ref: 1845 February, — Quarles [pseudonym; Edgar Allan Poe], “The Raven”, in The American Review, volume I, number II, New York, N.Y.; London: Wiley & Putnam, […], →OCLC:
text: an angry hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short sniffs that betokened mischief
ref: 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:
glosses: A sudden jerk; a quick throw or cast; a darting motion
examples: text: 'Oooh, don't.' Lilly staggered behind the counter. 'Hangover from hell. We had a good time, I think. He's such a flirt though. He really fancied Midnight. Was sooo gutted that she was actually a straight man. Think it almost turned him celibate.'
ref: 2011, Christina Jones, Never Can Say Goodbye:
text: Several young flirts about town had a design to cast us out of the fashionable world.
ref: July 16, 1713, Joseph Addison, The Guardian No. 109
glosses: Someone who flirts a lot or enjoys flirting; a flirtatious person.
glosses: An act of flirting.
examples: text: However, after a brief flirt with socialist realism , this method was abandoned and strict controls were removed after 1948. By the early 1950s, writers had earned the right to use any method and to experiment.
ref: 1986, The Reader's Adviser:
text: Manufacturers are being stung into action on both sides of the Atlantic as climbers consult their lawyers after a flirt with gravity. Of course responsible manufacturers already exercise great care with all aspects of safety and testing.
ref: 1988, Mountain:
text: Only two years older than André, this bespectacled bookworm had, after a flirt with the surrealists, settled down as the editor of Gallimard's literary monthly, Nouvelle Revue Française, better known by its acronym NRF.
ref: 1990, Axel Madsen, Silk Roads: The Asian Adventures of Clara and André Malraux:
text: However, the later rabbinic Law demands from a Jew who wishes to return to Judaism after a flirt with another religion, to go through giyur, conversion requirements, like any Gentile who wishes to enter the Covenant of Israel.
ref: 2005, Murray J. Kohn, Is the Holocaust Vanishing?: A Survivor's Reflections on the Academic Waning of Memory and Jewish Identity in the Post-Auschwitz Era, University Press of America, →ISBN, page 141:
text: Receiving a chair in Stockholm 1904 – after a passing flirt with the Historical School and social reform – he became an enigmatic Walrasian.
ref: 2014, Vincent Barnett, Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought, Routledge, →ISBN:
text: Lafayette Ron Hubbard was acquainted for some time with John “Jack” Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952), the James Dean of the occult, who was a rocket engineer and, after a brief flirt with Marxism, became interested in witchcraft and voodoo ...
ref: 2019, Rolf Giesen, The Nosferatu Story: The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors and Its Enduring Legacy, McFarland, →ISBN, page 113:
glosses: A tentative or brief, passing engagement with something.
examples: text: In the course of the month, there were three flirts of snow, […]
ref: 1842, Hazard's United States Commercial and Statistical Register, page 218:
text: [page 59:] A flirt of snow; after which, mild and pleasant weather, (with occasional showers) continued through the remainder of the month.
[page 220:] The medium temperature of this month was 45, and it produced much mild and pleasant weather, interspersed with some rainy days, and a few flirts of snow, and frosty nights.
ref: 1847, Charles Peirce, A Meteorological Account of the Weather in Philadelphia: From January 1, 1790, to January 1, 1847, Including Fifty-seven Years; with an Appendix...:
text: ... and we still trusted to accomplish the Malnitzer Pass on the morrow. Our hopes fell to zero as during the night an ominous wind howled over the roof, and shook our casements furiously. Morning broke with chilling flirts of rain.
ref: 1864, Josiah Gilbert, G. C. Churchill, The Dolomite Mountains: Excursions Through Tyrol, Carinthia, Carniola, and Friuli in 1861, 1861, and 1863 : with a Geological Chapter, page 10:
text: But joy came in the morning : first a glimpse of blue sky between the flirts of rain, then a sign of the sun. The river was reported to be rapidly filling — never mind, unlucky Friday has passed by, and we may look for better things on Saturday.
ref: 1875, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Ultima Thule: Or, A Summer in Iceland, page 316:
text: Long before their wonted time the robins came, — so early, indeed, that many a flirt of snow has stopped their nest-repairing, and sent them off shivering with the blues. They have arrived now in full force.
ref: 1881, Abba Goold Woolson, Browsing Among Books: And Other Essays, page 184:
text: "[…] and I would n't wonder ef we did n't have a little brush of wind and quite a flirt o' snow outen her yit."
ref: 1903, George Savary Wasson, Cap'n Simeon's Store, page 218:
text: Who cares now for hailstones skirling?
The rushes bend to the eddies curling;
A breath — and lo! the flag uncurling its petals blue
Oh, spring will come! There's a flirt of rain and a drift of light;
Oh, Spring will come!
ref: 1917, Elizabeth Sewell Hill, Western Waters, and Other Poems, page 61:
text: In the haze to the extreme north the Tower of Flints arose like a celluloid ruler set floating upon its end, or like a water-color drawing of a tower that has been left in the open and whose pigment has been all but washed away by a flirt of rain.
ref: 1967, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan:
glosses: A brief shower (of rain or snow).
glosses: Russula vesca, an edible woodland mushroom.