Flirt

How to spell flirt

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flirt

What does flirt mean?

1. verbTo behave in a playful, teasing way that suggests romantic or sexual interest.
2. nounA person who habitually behaves in a playful, romantically teasing way.

Flirt in a sentence

• verb

  He would flirt with the new colleague at every coffee break.

• noun

  Everyone at the office knew he was a harmless flirt.

• verb

  She tends to flirt whenever she feels nervous at a party.

• noun

  She had a reputation as a charming flirt at every reunion.

Where does flirt come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

Flirt first appears in English in the mid 1500s, and its origin is genuinely uncertain, so it is best treated as a probably imitative or echoic coinage rather than a borrowing from another language. The earliest recorded senses had nothing to do with romance: to flirt meant to give a sudden sharp movement, a flick or a jerk, much like flicking a fan open or tossing the head. The sound of the word itself seems to have been built to suggest that quick, darting motion, which is why some scholars link it loosely to the older words flit and flick. By the 1600s the idea of light, quick, teasing movement had drifted into social behaviour, describing someone who playfully toyed with another person's affections. Because the word is short, native, and spelled exactly as it sounds, the spelling stays simple, with the only point of care being the 'ir' vowel that sounds like 'ur'.

How the word is built

• flirt (a single root word; no prefix or suffix, likely imitative in origin)