flirt
Part of speech: noun
verb
adj
Morphological type: simple
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.
Inflected forms:
form: flirts
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: flirts
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: flirting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: flirted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: flirted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A sudden jerk; a quick throw or cast; a darting motion
pos: noun
examples: several little flirts and vibrations
with many a flirt and flutter
an angry hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short sniffs that betokened mischief
gloss: Someone who flirts a lot or enjoys flirting; a flirtatious person.
pos: noun
examples: '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.'
Several young flirts about town had a design to cast us out of the fashionable world.
gloss: An act of flirting.
pos: noun
gloss: A tentative or brief, passing engagement with something.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
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.
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.
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.
Receiving a chair in Stockholm 1904 – after a passing flirt with the Historical School and social reform – he became an enigmatic Walrasian.
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 ...
gloss: A brief shower (of rain or snow).
pos: noun
tags: dialectal
examples: In the course of the month, there were three flirts of snow, […]
[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.
... 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.
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.
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.
"[…] 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."
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!
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.
gloss: Russula vesca, an edible woodland mushroom.
pos: noun
tags: with-definite-article
gloss: To throw (something) with a jerk or sudden movement; to fling.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: They flirt water in each other's faces.
to flirt a glove, or a handkerchief
The carpenter himself, going with another man to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, was nearly pushed from the rigging by an unseen hand; and his shipmate swore that a wet hammock was flirted in his face.
She laughed […] while she flirted a soiled pocket-handkerchief at him.
She [Mollie, the mare] took a place near the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with.
gloss: To jeer at; to mock.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
intransitive
examples: I am ashamed; I am scorned; I am flirted.
Asinius Pollio[…], having written many invectives against Plancus, staid untill he were dead to publish them. It was rather to flurt at a blind man, and raile in a dead mans eare, and to offend a senselesse man, than incurre the danger of his revenge.
gloss: To dart about; to move with quick, jerky motions.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Her skirt flirted around her knees like a flower petal.
gloss: To blurt out.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Chatterer flirted his tale in the saucy way he has, and his eyes twinkled.
gloss: To play at courtship; to talk with teasing affection, to insinuate sexual attraction in a playful (especially conversational) way.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Of course, the young people flirted, for that diversion is apparently irradicable even in the "best society".
Dr Hutchinson, who told jurors that he had been married for 37 years and that his son was a policeman, said he enjoyed flirting with the woman, was flattered by her attention and was anticipating patting her bottom again - but had no intention of seducing her.
gloss: To experiment, or tentatively engage, with; to become involved in passing with.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: I've thrown away my reputation, self-respect, money, health and happiness through the use of drugs and alcohol; I can teach her how fragile a reputation is, how a fool and their money are soon parted, and how dangerous it is to flirt with drugs.
The various episodes of thinkers flirting with the idea of an infinite universe, starting with early Greek speculations and running through Cusa in the Renaissance, came to fruition as a central element in the Scientific Revolution.
gloss: Flirtatious.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: He had “large dark blue eyes, wide open, very coquet, very flirt in the way he looked at you.”
Now Maggie knew that he was flirt and for the most part it didn't bother her when he flirted with other girls because she knew that at the end of the day she was the one that he would end up kissing.
You know I've been very flirt with girls.
Synonyms: charm
come on to
coquet
dally
fool around
gallivant
get fresh
hit on
make a move on
make an advance
make eyes at
play the field
put the make on
tease
Antonyms: belittle
cockblock
Related words: promiscuous woman
courtship
clit tease
blue-baller
cock tease
cocktease
cockteaser
prickteaser
Translations: