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Flirting   /flˈərtɪŋ/   Listen
Flirting

noun
1.
Playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest.  Synonyms: coquetry, dalliance, flirt, flirtation, toying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flirting" Quotes from Famous Books



... gone to concert, play, and ball, So often with them now, That it must seem to one and all As binding as a vow. He certainly does mean to take One of the girls, and close The life he leads—the flirting rake— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various

... had vicariously wounded him. He "learned" them to be toads, or celebrities, or tried to. But his love of little jokes betrayed him. He, a sort of minnow, thought to trouble the pool where the great fish were oaring at ease by flirting the surface with his tail. It seemed to him that he was throwing up a fine volume of water; but the great fish held their way unconscious in the deep. Chiefly, therefore, he failed with all his cleverness. Brain he had, logic he had; the ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... cock among the hens of his harem. Frederic d'Argy, the young naval officer, who was enjoying his holiday, as M. de Nailles had said, was enjoying it exceedingly. How often, long after, on board the ship Floye, as he paced the silent quarter-deck, far from any opportunity of flirting, did he recall the forms and faces of these young girls, some dark, some fair, some rosy-half-women and half-children, who made much of him, and scolded him, and teased him, and contended for his attentions, while no better could be had, on purpose to tease one another. Oh! what a delightful time ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... a large balcony-box for the emperor and his suite. At these games women have no special place set apart for them; they sit in their richest land showiest attire among the general body of the spectators, and flirting and love-making are part of the order of the day. A very crude form of field-glass or "spy-glass" was already in use, apparently consisting generally of a mere hollow tube, but occasionally provided with a magnifying lens. Nero himself, in consequence of his short-sight, had a "glass" ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... bother, my dear old veteran?" said she one day, six months after their doubly adulterous union. "Do you want to be flirting? To be unfaithful to me? I assure you, I should like you better without your make-up. Oblige me by giving up all your artificial charms. Do you suppose that it is for two sous' worth of polish on your boots that I love you? For your india-rubber belt, your ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... months of drifting about with the King and his council, and his gay and showy and dancing and flirting and hawking and frolicking and serenading and dissipating court—drifting from town to town and from castle to castle—a life which was pleasant to us of the personal staff, but not to Joan. However, she only saw it, she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... are cautious!" muttered Sybil, biting her lips with suppressed fury; for their forbearance, which she called duplicity, enraged her more than all their flirting ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... to myself,' writes poor Dr. Morgan, 'the thoughtless and heartless Glorvina trifling with her friend, jesting at his sufferings, and flirting with every man she meets.' He sends her some commissions, but declares that there is only one about which he is really anxious, 'and that is to love me exclusively; to prefer me to every other good; to think of me, speak of me, write to me, and ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... move, as if to stop the man, but Frank gave a sign to let him go. Mr. Cooler scrambled nimbly up the bank, turned and waved his hand with a flirting motion, and then ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... is at home," she insinuated in her recumbent position, "ill with the small-pox, and prayers are being offered to the goddess; and your duty too should be to abstain from love affairs for a couple of days, but on the contrary, by flirting with me, you've contaminated yourself! but, you'd better be off at ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... an innocent girl, not up to the free-and-easy flirting ways of your Society friends, and she should not be compromised by sitting out three ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... become a necessity of her life. Moreover, Mrs. Davis has the reputation of a coquette, and coming here to see my father every day, she says to the world: "It is not true; this old man is seventy, and nobody can suspect me of flirting with him, and yet I show him more attentions than to any one else." Finally, though she herself comes from an old family, Mr. Davis, in spite of his wealth, is a mere nobody, and their friendship with my father strengthens their position in society. There was a time when I asked ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... their conversation, he pulled himself up. He feared lest she suspected him of flirting. "You're ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... Conquest of my Silk Socks, The Adventures of my Tuxedo, and such like? But Khalid is modest only in the things that pertain to the outward self. He wrote of other Romances and other Tragedies. And when his Genius is not dancing the dance of the seven veils, she is either flirting with the monks of the Lebanon hills or setting fire to something in New York. But this is not altogether satisfactory to the present Editor, who, unlike the Author of the Khedivial Library MS., must keep the reader in mind. 'Tis very well to endeavour ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... gentleman upon the shoulder, crying: "The rail market will take care of itself until to-morrow, Hannibal. What is more to the point, I saw your supper partner flirting with 'Handsome Dan' Avery. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... Antinous, Lord Granville Leveson Gower. The reckless manner in which she carried on this love-affair was the first indication of something overstrained, something wild and unaccountable, in her temperament. Lord Granville, after flirting with her outrageously, declared that he could never marry her, and went off on an embassy to St. Petersburg. Her distraction was extreme: she hinted that she would follow him to Russia; she threatened, and perhaps attempted, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... STRAIGHT: Flirting is a thing that begins in nothing. You say something, you talk like everything and you mean nothing, and it liable to end up in anything. A flirtation is a clan-destination meeting with ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... that question before, Honoria," said Geoffrey, keeping his temper with difficulty, "and now there is another thing I wish to say to you. Do you know that detestable woman Anne stopped for more than half an hour at Paddington Station this evening, flirting with a ticket collector, instead of bringing Effie home at once, as I told her to do. I am very angry about it. She is not to be relied on; we shall have some accident with the child before we have done. Cannot you discharge her and get ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... ugly insolent fop, blazing in a superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent. By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the impulse which urged Frances ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... in jest, half in earnest. "Consult your own sense of propriety!" she said. "Was the poor man to blame for not being rude enough to say No, when a lady asked him to turn over her music? Could he help it, if the same lady persisted in flirting with him? He ran away from her the next morning. Did you deserve to be told why he left us? Certainly not—after the vixenish manner in which you handed the bedroom candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... evident partiality justified. Pleased with the prospect of their son's making so good a match, they even ventured one day a dull jest on the subject in the presence of Frances—a jest which, heavy as it was, aroused her to reflection. Flirting with a man, and angling for his admiration, is one thing; loving and marrying him, is another. For the first, Vincent Dunbar answered exceedingly well; but for the second, he was wholly unfit. In spite of her little weaknesses, Frances had too much ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... A gray squirrel, flirting its bushy tail, whisked across the path in front of him that moment, scampered up a hickory and perched itself near the top, where it offered the best chance for a ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away. A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... her teacher, until Durward felt certain that she had never entertained for him any feeling stronger than that of friendship; and as to her flirting seriously with Captain Atherton, the idea was too preposterous to be harbored for a single moment. Once exonerated from these charges, it was strange how fast 'Lena rose in his estimation, and when John Jr., with a loud yawn, asked if they did not wish he would leave them alone, more in earnest ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... am, I place myself at your disposal. Never throw me off for some one else when you think you can improve your lot. I am yours, and do you be from now on my demoiselle!" "I thank you kindly, sire," she said. While the acquaintance of these two was ripening thus, the others, too, were engaged in flirting. For there were perhaps ninety ladies there, each of whom was fair and charming, noble and polite, virtuous and prudent, and a lady of exalted birth, so the men could agreeably employ themselves in caressing and kissing them, and in talking to them and in ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... That is so like you, Mattie. You always see likenesses when other people cannot trace the faintest resemblance," for this remark was sure to draw out his opposition. Isabel was a silly flirting little thing in her brother's estimation, and, he thought, could not hold a candle to the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... was at Mrs Law's, a very pleasant Assembly. Osborne Markham [39] was flirting with his intended, Lady Mary Thynne, a ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... two, flirting on the bridge is strictly forbidden. You will demoralize the whole crew. Even the pilot cannot keep his eyes ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... am afraid your manly self-control will cause Zura many a heart ache. I know of nothing more contemptible than being engaged to one girl and flirting with another." ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... Rosalind to turn pale. The sick fear, which had never been absent from her heart during the evening, became on the instant intolerable. She turned to the young lad with whom she had been flirting, bade him a hasty and indifferent "good night" and followed ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... her explanations.) "But the fact is that though they have never met till now, I've known them both as children, and I could not well avoid bringing them together, but I don't think there's any harm done; they are as simple and open as the day. There's no flirting—they are just enjoying the new surroundings and these golden hours—but I'll be more careful and put a stop to their after-dinner promenades. ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... person who ought to be put into a convent-school," Idina went on, "for she cares more about flirting and fun and intrigue than anything else. Being shut up with a lot of girls and religious women bores her dreadfully, and after she's been there for a while she looks round for a little amusement. The pupils are allowed to go out sometimes, and she meets a man ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Heinrich in the pretty play Old Heidelberg. After a long absence he returned to Heidelberg where his student life had been happy—or at least had seemed so to him in the latter, lonesome years. Behold, he found the same reckless crowd, swaggering, carousing, flirting, dueling, debt-making, love-making, and occasionally studying. He liked it so well that, if I mistake not, the place killed him. I felt very much in the same position as the Doctor Juettner of the play when I returned to Paris last summer. The Conservatoire is still in ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... was farther from my thoughts, and now you would publish it on the house-tops! Just think what it will be to have every one wondering and whispering about one, and saying, 'Now they have had a quarrel,' and 'Now they have made it up again.' Or, 'See now she is flirting with somebody else.' I could not bear it," says Molly, blind to the growing anger on the young man's face as he listens to and fully takes in the suggestions contained in these imaginary speeches; "it would make me wretched. It might make ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... old times, animals could talk and do many things. Well, this conceited woman, with her silly foolish way, began attracting the different animals around her. Almost everybody was laughing at her, but she seemed to think it great fun to have so many admirers. She got a lesson one day when flirting with the bear. They were walking along together and she let him put his arm around her, but he gave her such a hug that he broke two of her ribs. She was a long time getting well and then her husband gave her a great lecturing. ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... Mrs. Carson, "ingeniously and correctly associated," as Miss Hitchcock commented, and little Laura Lindsay flirting with young Polot. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... intimacy with the Decembrist rebels show. But his youthful fire soon died down, and he found it possible to accommodate himself to the life of a Russian high functionary and courtier under the severe despot Nicholas I, though, to be sure, he always hated that life. For all his flirting with revolutionarism, he never displayed great originality or depth of thought. He was simply an extraordinarily gifted author, a perfect versifier, a wondrous lyrist, and a delicious raconteur, endowed with a grace, ease and power of expression that delighted even the exacting artistic sense ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... pretty sight to see her with her arms around his neck and her bright head leaning on his arm, while she looked up at him so lovingly and sympathizingly, too, as they watched the maneuvers of her mother. Once I heard her say to him, when Daisy was flirting more than usual and attracting all eyes to her, 'I shall never do like that; but mamma is very pretty, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... death to my severity; he was a hard drinker, but I gave him a month to reform—which sentence he took so much to heart that he broke his neck in a fox-chase from mere despair. A third individual—a very handsome young man—of whom I must confess I was a little jealous about his flirting with another young lady—felt such remorse that he absolutely ran away with and married her. I know, of course, I am accountable for all these calamities; but it cannot be helped now—my conscience must ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the mighty current 'as things of life,' bearing speculators, merchants, dandies, fine ladies, everything real, and everything affected, in the form of humanity, with pianos, and stocks of novels, and cards, and dice, and flirting, and love-making, and drinking, and champagne, and on the deck, perhaps, three hundred fellows, who have seen alligators, and neither fear whiskey, nor gun-powder. A steamboat, coming from New Orleans, brings ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Europe,—relating, with great particularity, their adventures in France,—dining with the Dukes of Chartres and Angouleme, and attending the opera with the Duke of Berry and the Countess de Chausel,—visiting Rome with the grand Duke of Tuscany, and flirting with the Countess Guiccioli, in the absence of Lord Byron,—engaged in the chase with the Percies of Northumberland, or at Almack's, with the Marchioness of Conyngham,—all of which apocryphal incidents and adventures my simple-minded friend ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... such disdain for the eccentricities of modern fashion, and put herself into the hands of the best dressmaker in town. And thus snubbing, and being snubbed, dressing and dancing and feasting and flirting, did she soar higher and higher in her butterfly career. The denouement comes when they are cut out by "Ye rising Minnows"—an American sculptor—one Pygmalion F. Minnow—whose wife was twice as ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... their neighbours together, without ceremony, round a saddle of mutton and a gooseberry pie, and other such solid comforts; and then, hey for a round game!—for the young people, Pope Joan, or what you please, in the drawing-room, with lots of flirting and favouritism, and a jolly little supper of broiled bones and whipt cream, and toasts and sentiments, with plenty of sly allusions and honest laughter all round the table. But twice or thrice in the year the worthy couple made a more imposing gathering at the King's House, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... was not free from all blame in the matter. It would be unjust to accuse her of flirting—of flirting, at least, in the objectionable sense of the word. It was not in her nature to flirt. But it was in her nature to please herself without thinking much of the manner in which she did it, and it was in her nature also to be indifferent as to what others thought ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... laugh behind the screen. The pleasant voice must have hurt poor Selene acutely for she drew up her shoulders, and her fair features were stamped with an expression of keen suffering, and she pressed both hands over her heart as she went on past the screen and her handsome flirting playfellow, limping across the courtyard ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... me you've been flirting with Lieutenant CASSIO. Now that won't do. Remember that under the Fifteenth Amendment I have the right, being a colored man, of doing pretty much as I choose. If this flirtation isn't stopped promptly I'll go to Indiana, divorce you, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various

... a thousand memories. A cloud of home-sickness dimmed the brightness of the sun. Michael could see a green, green lawn and the figure of his mother busy at her flower-beds; the robin's flirting was growing bolder; it was peeping up into her very face! The smell of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... "You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his cousin. "You had better take care. He is ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... in herself vulgar. Many of even humbler education than she are far less really vulgar than some in the forefront of society. No doubt the conventionalities of a man like Forgue must have been sometimes shocked in familiar intercourse with one like Eppy; but while he was merely flirting with her, the very things that shocked would also amuse him—for I need hardly say he was not genuinely refined; and by and by the growing passion obscured them. There is no doubt that, had she been confronted as his wife with ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... their condition, and palm themselves off on young fellows for gentlewomen and great fortunes. How many families have been ruined by these ladies? when the father or master of the family, preferring the flirting airs of a young prinked up strumpet, to the artless sincerity of a plain, grave, and good wife, has given his desires aloose, and destroyed soul, body, family, and estate. But they are very favourable if they wheedle nobody into matrimony, but only make a present of a small live creature, no bigger ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... who had also had his sharp word of warning, and had been told very plainly to cut out this flirting with Annie if he wanted to remain on Luck's payroll, eyed her strangely. Once he tried to have a secret word with her, but she moved away and would not look at him. For Annie-Many-Ponies, hurt and bitter as she felt toward her beloved Wagalexa Conka, hated Bill Holmes fourfold for being the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... stolen over him to-day—of continuing to notice Hetty, of allowing himself any opportunity for such slight caresses as he had been betrayed into already—than he refused to believe such a future possible for himself. To flirt with Hetty was a very different affair from flirting with a pretty girl of his own station: that was understood to be an amusement on both sides, or, if it became serious, there was no obstacle to marriage. But this little thing would be spoken ill of directly, if she happened to ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... had not married, and I think I may say on her behalf that she had never thought of marrying. Indeed, one cannot see how such a woman could make any effort in that line. It was impossible to conceive that a lady so staid in her manner should be guilty of flirting; nor was there any man within ten miles of Hamworth who would have dared to make the attempt. Women for the most part are prone to love-making—as nature has intended that they should be; but there are women from whom all ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... "Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage. This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads to the result, and sometimes ends ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... antithesis to this wolfish feeding were the manners of Oliver Laurence. He toyed with his victuals, cutting them into the littlest pieces and almost flirting with his ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... wrong. Nor, in one sense, was what she had done irreparable. She chose to believe Frank Leven, rather than Edward Hallin. Of course he must and should marry! It was absurd to suppose that he should not. No one had a stronger sense of family than he. And as for the girl—the little dancing, flirting girl!—why the thing happened every day. His wife should not be too strenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She should cheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all with the dry common-sense her mother would have applied to it. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... also get a considerable amount from foreign countries, then its ability to resume work on a prosperous and profitable basis when the war is over will be very greatly helped. This would seem to be so obvious that one might have thought that even a Government which is believed to be flirting with what is called Tariff Reform would think twice before it imposed any restrictions on the free flow of foreign capital into British industry. In so far as foreigners lend to us we shall be able to import raw materials, to be worked up to the profit ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... Collonel, these flirting Humours misbecome you, and lighten not, but aggravate your Baseness. A Thing how much abhorr'd must he appear, who villanously shall attempt, a Lady, propose, and solemnly pursue a Conquest, when he, long since, by strictest ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the girl blushed so furiously that the notion crossed Geraldine that he must have been flirting with the poor little tobacconist's daughter; but Lady Merrifield was exclaiming that he too had had nothing to eat, and General Mohun came forth to draw them into the dining-room, where he helped Ludmilla to cold lamb, salad, etc., and she sat down at Gerald's signal, very timidly, so that she ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Watteau here, and a rare piece of fantastical brightness and gayety it is. What a delightful affectation about yonder ladies flirting their fans, and trailing about in their long brocades! What splendid dandies are those, ever-smirking, turning out their toes, with broad blue ribbons to tie up their crooks and their pigtails, and wonderful gorgeous crimson satin breeches! Yonder, in the midst of a golden atmosphere, rises a bevy ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of a rapturous happiness, curiously contrasting with the ordinary set remarks of admiration, or falsely sentimental outbursts too much in vogue. But Leslie Cunningham found that the child-likeness was not only in manner, but that Erica had no idea of flirting; she was bright, and merry, and talkative, but she had no thought, no desire of attracting his attention. She had actually and literally come out into the garden to see the glow worms, not to monopolize the much-run-after ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... of Sue seemed to hover round him and prevent his flirting and drinking with the frolicsome girls who made advances—wistful to gain a little joy. At ten o'clock he came away, choosing a circuitous route homeward to pass the gates of the college whose head had just sent him ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... nasty, unkind old thing,' said Mrs. Palliser; 'for, after all, the worst she can bring against you is flirting with your friend's cousin. I hope you are engaged to him, dear; ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... weaker vessel"; for neglecting their shops, their fields, their counting-houses, and their interesting families, and wasting their precious time in writing love-tales, "doleful ditties," and "distressful strains," for the magazines; for flirting with the muse, while their wives are wanting shoes, or perpetrating puns, while their children cry for "buns"! Suppose that, pointing every line with wit, I should hold them up to contempt as careless, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... cock would separate from the pack, and running out to some distance, would leap upon a rock that was there; then, after dropping his wings, flirting with his spread tail, erecting the ruff upon his neck, and throwing back his head, he would swell and strut upon the rock, exhibiting himself like a diminutive turkey-cock. After manoeuvring in this way for a few moments, he would commence flapping his wings in short quick strokes, which grew more ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... chide myself, and call myself names for flirting with Count Bielsk—at a distance of twenty feet or more! "I could kick my back," as the Duc de Richelieu—not the Cardinal, but the lover of the Regent's daughters and "every wife's husband"—used ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... obtained; sentimental sceptics, who, after labouring to demolish what they call the chimera of superstition, fall to weeping as they remember they have now no lies to teach their children; democrats who are frightened at the rough voice of the people, and aristocrats flirting with democracy. Logic, if it cannot cure, might at least ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... manolas on balconies—this truly Spanish motive in art, as Spanish as is the Madonna Italian—over which are thrown gorgeous shawls, smiling, flirting; with languorous eyes and provocative fans, they sit ensconced as they sat in Goya's time and centuries before Goya, the Eternal Feminine of Spain. Zuloaga is her latest interpreter. Isn't Candida delicious ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... gets things into the wrong place, and forgets this and that, and then he and Laura sit down and spoon. I never saw anything like it. First it's Corthell and then Landry, and next it will be somebody else. Laura regularly mortifies me; a great, grown-up girl like that, flirting, and letting every man she meets think that he's just the one particular one of the whole earth. It's not good form. And Landry—as if he didn't know we've got more to do now than just to dawdle and dawdle. I could slap him. I like to see ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... answered sadly. "A terribly bitter quarrel. Oh, we were both so young and so foolish. It was my fault. I vexed Cecil by flirting with another man"—wasn't I coming on!— "and he was jealous and angry. He went out West and never came back. I have never seen him since, and I do not even know if he is alive. But—but—I could never ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... is a little serpent," exclaimed my companion, "and so wise to confide in you, and without flirting! It must have been charming ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... James Croft comptroller of the household, made no scruple to confess that he had consulted an adept of the name of Smith, to learn who were his father's enemies in the council; that Smith mentioned the earl of Leicester; and that a little while after, flirting with his thumbs, he exclaimed, alluding to this nobleman's cognisance, "The bear is bound to the stake;" and again, that nothing could now save him. But as it might after all have been difficult to show in what manner the flirting of a thumb in London could have exerted a fatal power over the life ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Salemina bitingly, "there will always be, even in an intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape all the developing influences about them, and remain commonplace, conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting. Never ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... quantities. They bloomed along the fence today like a Ziegfeld chorus on an outing. One girl carried on a coherent conversation with six different fellows at once and left each of them feeling that he alone had been singled out for her particular favor. As a matter of fact I was flirting with her all the time and I could tell by the very way she looked that she would have much rather been talking to me. Last week I had to convince mother that I was wearing my flannels; this week I had to convince her I still had them on. The only way to satisfy ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... balance, the seasons coquetted, gray-haired old Winter trifling and flirting with the ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... she has lied about it, but even that tendency for the last year has been nearly obliterated. A good deal of interest in boys has been maintained, but not with any show of immorality. There has been nothing but normal flirting; accounting for the occasions when Edna has ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... or one of the other department stores. They'd give us both places in one of the men's departments. They like pretty girls for those places—if they're not giddy and don't waste time flirting but use flirtation to sell goods. But what's the sense in talking about it? You haven't got the clothes. A saleslady's got to be counter-dressed. She can look as bad as she pleases round the skirt ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... (it happened so often with Gerda), thought "Shall I stop it? Or shall I let things take their course? Oh, I'll let them alone. It's only one of Gerda's childish hero-worships, and he'll be kind without flirting. It'll do Gerda good to go on with this new work she's so keen on. And she knows he cares for Nan. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... Lucy Fountain, was left at nineteen to the care of two guardians: 1, her Uncle Fountain, an old bachelor, who loved comfort, pedigree, and his own way; 2, her Aunt Bazalgette, who loved flirting, dressing, and her own way; both charming people, when they got their own way; verjuice, when they didn't: and, to conclude, egotists deep as ocean. From guardians they grew match-makers and rivals by proxy: uncle schemed to graft Lucy on to a stick called Talboys, that came ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... and address my discourse to the waves, and be as romantic and whimsical as I please; but it happened that I had scarcely begun my apostrophe, before out flaunted a whole rank of officers, with ladies and abbes and puppy dogs, singing, and flirting, and making such a hubbub, that I had not one peaceful moment to observe the bright tints of the western horizon, or enjoy the series of antique ideas with which a calm sunset never ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... me. I sang the last hymn in a sort of fervour, and came out into the cool night air, positively longing for a battle in which I could win my spurs, and oh dear, dear, in ten minutes' time, before we were half-way home, I was flirting with Wallace, and talking of frivolous worldly subjects, as if I had never had a ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... fallen in love with his daughter; and here was his daughter apparently quite as ready to be in love with the man. How could she, who was ordinarily circumspect, and almost cold in her demeanour towards strangers who was from circumstances and from her own disposition altogether hostile to flirting intimacies how could this Clara have changed her nature so speedily? The squire did not understand it, but was prepared to believe that it was all for the best. 'I'll call him Will, if you like it,' ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... said that her pug was an angel, and I being unable to reach such heights as that was compared to my disadvantage with this man. I am nearly sure, too, that she wanted to flirt with Fred, quite regardless of the fact that he was no use at flirting, and I should have had something to say if he had been. In a short year she had changed most dreadfully, and was no longer satisfied with being liked very much. She was a puzzle to me, and had it not been for the bishop, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... thoroughly loved her. Nevertheless he liked making love to Isabel Boncassen. He was quite willing to marry and settle down, and looked forward with satisfaction to having Mabel Grex for his wife. But it would be pleasant to have a six-months run of flirting and love-making before this settlement, and he had certainly never seen any one with whom this would be so delightful as with Miss Boncassen. But that the two ladies should be at the same house ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... fury. His blood was boiling.... Arlee Beecher in the power of that Turkish devil! Arlee Beecher prisoned within that ghastly palace! It was unreal. It was monstrous.... That radiant girl he had danced with, that teasing little sprite, half flouting, half flirting. Why, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Tom Paine! 'The Age of Reason'—you know," said Winslow, gazing with a mixture of delight and patronizing pride at the Radicals of Todos Santos. "Oh! he's no fool—is Martinez, nor Ruiz either! And while you've been flirting with Dona Isabel, and Banks has been trying to log-roll the Padre, and Crosby going in for siestas, I'VE found them out. And there are a few more—aren't ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... frijoles and tortillas, or other matters of satisfaction to the peon, greet the nostrils of the promenader from time to time. The well-dressed senoritas and their male acquaintances, with ceaseless charla, or small-talk, promenade round and round the plaza, flirting, laughing, and enjoying life in a way that seems only possible to the Latin race. Indeed, the plaza is the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... into the drawing-room and there he found Jack De Baron, Guss Mildmay;—and Mr. Houghton, fast asleep. The host was wakened up to bid him welcome, but was soon slumbering again. De Baron and Guss Mildmay had been playing bagatelle,—or flirting in the back drawing-room, and after a word or two returned to their game. "Ill is he?" said Mrs. Houghton, speaking of the Marquis, "I suppose he has never ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... O'Connor came into his room. "Pack up your kit. The company is ordered on detached duty, and there is an end to your dancing and flirting." ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... in their petticoats of many hues, in gorgeously embroidered vest, in chemisette of dazzling white, crowned with a halo of many frills, glittering in gold and silver—are not the creatures of an artist's fancy. You meet them in their thousands on holiday afternoons, walking gravely arm in arm, flirting ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... course, though the Persian rugs and the pictures are fine; but the staircase is peculiarly charming. It looks a staircase made for sitting out dances with men you like, and evidently it knows its value as a flirting place and lives up to it, for there are fat, bright-coloured silk and satin cushions resting invitingly against the wall, on each one of the shallow steps. Most of the rooms are enormous, and consist half of quaint leaded windows, with seats underneath. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Lucy, when she sees him flirting with you." This Mrs. Robarts said rather gravely, whereas Lucy had been speaking in a half-bantering tone. As soon as even the word flirting was out of Fanny's mouth, she was conscious that she had been guilty of an injustice in using it. She had wished to say something which would ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... petting, sporting, sparking, hanky-panky; caressing. embrace, salute, kiss, buss, smack, osculation, deosculation^; amorous glances. courtship, wooing, suit, addresses, the soft impeachment; lovemaking; serenading; caterwauling. flirting &c v.; flirtation, gallantry; coquetry. true lover's knot, plighted love; love tale, love token, love letter; billet-doux, valentine. honeymoon; Strephon and Chloe^. V. caress, fondle, pet, dandle; pat, pat on ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... 'You're flirting,' he thought; 'you're bored, and teasing me for want of something to do, while I ...' His heart really seemed as though it were ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... been hard to convince a woman, if she had overheard this speech, that Miss Sherwood's humility was not the calculated affectation of a coquette. Sometimes a man's unsuspicion is wiser, and Harkless knew that she was not flirting with him. In addition, he was not a fatuous man; he did not extend the implication of her words nearly so far as she would ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... naming anybody. And he asks—with an ingenious touch of self-confession which does the author great credit, if it was consciously laid on—whether it can be Panthea or Araminta, with both of whom he has, in fact, been, if not exactly flirting, carrying on (as the time itself would have said) a "commerce of respectful and obliging admiration." He has a long talk with his confidant Feraulas (whose beloved and really lovable Martesie is, unluckily, not at hand to illuminate the mystery), and then ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... gathered; and, after a little difficulty in reaching the dead tree, he returned to the ladies, just as they were about to embark again. Perhaps he had caught a spark of the spirit of coquetry from Mrs. Creighton, and resented her flirting so much with Mr. Stryker; for he did not give her all the flowers he had gathered, but offered a few to each lady ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... approve of flirting, Beatrice, and you know it. The way you gadded around over the hills with him—a perfect stranger—was disgraceful; perfectly disgraceful. You don't know any thing about the fellow, whether he's a fit companion or not—a ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... modesty that they do not attract our attention. But here come the haughty daughters of Jerusalem! They lean forward; they lean very much forward—so far forward as to be unnatural—teetering, wobbling, wriggling, flirting, or, as my text describes it, they "walk with stretched-forth necks, walking and ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... it! I told you two months ago she was only flirting with him; and now she has rejected him. And oh! I am so glad of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... as her own disc, encircled with a thin fringe of white hair and whiskers. Indeed, he looked so like the prevailing caricatures in a comic almanac of planets, with dimly outlined features, that the moon would have been quite justified in flirting with him, as she clearly did, insinuating a twinkle into his keen, gray eyes, making the shadow of a dimple on his broad, fat chin, and otherwise idealizing him after the fashion of her hero-worshiping sex. Touched by these benign influences, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... into Bering And hasten to the seals One glance upon their harems Then take unto your heels More steam into your boilers More vigor in your wheels But in flirting with the billows Oh regard the hours of meals Do regard the hours of meals. If in this we are exacting ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... been with them an hour it was evident to many, not last of all to big Kootanie George, that the "Mex" was flirting openly with the yellow haired Ernestine. It was equally evident that his notice did not embarrass her as his apology had done. She curved her red lips at him when George was not looking, she glanced down as ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... as beautiful. You would have gone on wearing expensive clothes, wouldn't you? You would have kept up the old round of teas and dinners, theatres, dances, late suppers—with a train of men dangling after you—flirting men, married men—men who try to kiss women in taxicabs—you ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... I walked rather discontentedly into the sitting room, and I wondered what sort of stuff Mr. Summers was made of. I began to be afraid that I might be piqued into flirting ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... of Nod," said the bride, languidly flirting the leaf of a palm. "I suppose you've been ...
— Options • O. Henry

... des Modes, dabbling in water colours, pensively frowning at an embroidery frame. Of the three young men present one was absorbed in the Racing Calendar, another was making himself generally agreeable, offering to read aloud or hold wool, and a third was flirting in a corner with the sparkling ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... he began in a dispassionate legislative voice, "what I really mean is—purple in the face. You know, purple, splotchy skin, caused by eating too much rich food, drinking too much strong wine, playing cards and dancing and flirting." ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... not escape me, when you wrote the last letter, you were full of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, for making yourself out so good looking when you are so old. Your flirting is like a big shaggy dog playing with a little kitten. If you were only as nice and sleek as I am, I might understand it; but when I get to be a burgomaster I will shame you with the Luginsland [Editor's note: this was a Nuremberg prison], ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer

... difficult to convey to us what this conjugal love was like. Was it Elective Affinity? I asked. Yes; something like that, but still not that. It was the spontaneous gravitation in the spheres, either to other, of the halves of the dual spirit dissociated on earth. Not at all—again in reply to me—like flirting in a corner. The two, when walking in the spheres, looked like one. This conjugal puzzle was too much for us. We "gave it up;" and with an eloquent peroration on the Dynamics ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... "I've been experimenting—flirting with science," responded Eph, loftily. "Say, if you landsmen know a buoy from a banana, get down to the bow moorings of this steel mermaid, and I'll pass you the bow cable. It's a heap easier to lead this submarine ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... flirting with Dick then, and you'd hardly treat Ford decently. And Ford hadn't gone ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... unsatisfied.... A story about the Empress puts all our scandals on the beach, and all our questions of dress into the shade, and, I am sure," she added with a smile at the corners of her mouth, "that even our friend, Madame d'Ormonde will leave off flirting with Monsieur Le Brassard to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... she said. "Mother and Father," she confided, with the merciless calm of seventeen, "they'd like me to be exactly like all the other girls, flirting and dressing, and rushing about all day and all night! But oh—how I hate it! Oh, I like the girls and boys—truly I do, and I am popular with them all, I know that! But 'CASES'!" said ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... too bad, when there are so many simple, sweet girls in the world, that men seem to adore those that flirt like dear Cousin Betty. I don't approve of flirting anyway. I wouldn't flirt for anything. I don't ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... He is always flirting with the eldest girl. It is a shame; for he will never marry her. He wants money and position, and he is so clever he will get them. He is not a gentleman, and he rarely tells the truth. But he is sure to make up to you. I thought I had better ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... at home, but a light that has been casually valued, goes out, and leaves you to the dark) that an elderly farmer, looking for the best seed corn in the market-place, while his daughter the dairymaid is flirting with his neighbour's son, are more to us than all the Importances and the Great Ones who in all history till now have proudly and expertly tended their ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... the beautiful clear liquid. I raised the glass to my lips. Oh, horror, it was only water. What a grimace I made. Suddenly a duet of laughter resounded from a black coat and a pink dress that I had not perceived flirting in the corner, and who were amused at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... escaped Fred Linden when he found himself floating in the comparatively still water below the rapids, and he knew that although he was pretty well bruised, none of his bones was broken. He let go of the limb of the tree that had served him so well, and flirting the water from his eyes, struck out with his old time vigor for the shore, toward which he ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... Putney Church and my watch, which a young gentleman "intended for one of the universities" accounted for from difference of latitude. He likewise explained a phenomenon, which rather startled us, near Kew. We saw about half-a-dozen cows galloping furiously towards the river's brink; flirting their tails, and, indeed, conducting themselves with a vivacity perfectly inconsistent with the acknowledged sobriety of that useful animal. He calmed our apprehensions, by informing us they were intended for the East Indies. Every other day they are fed with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various

... acquaintance's. "No, thank you, Hubert; I don't think I'll go down, and, if you're wise, you won't go down either. I distrust this first officer. He's a careless navigator, and to-night his head's too full of that pretty Mrs. Ogilvy. He has been flirting with her desperately ever since we left Bombay, and to-morrow he knows he will lose her for ever. His mind isn't occupied with the navigation at all; what HE is thinking of is how soon his watch will ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... best sport in the world. This bouncer has been dodging me all the afternoon, and I vowed I'd get him before I left. Almost had him once before, but he got away with the bait. Wouldn't let me alone, though, even after that. I warned him he was flirting with his fate!" And he laughed a big, ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... I was under groom at St. James Court. When the younger son came to this country, I came with him but left him an' became a waiter in New York City. I went to an excursion to Long Branch an' got to flirting with a widow just for pastime. She dogged my life after that and my wife is something terrible so I took her and came to Los Angeles. We was as happy as any one could be with a wife like mine until the widow ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... wanderfroh who has been at a higher school or who is still attending one is eligible. The card of membership only costs 3 marks for a single member and 4 marks for a whole family. Some of the excursions are planned to include brother pilgrims, and their character is gay and cheerful, without flirting or coquetry, a genuine friendly intercourse between girls and boys, young men and maidens, a pure and beautiful companionship such as no dancing lesson and no ballroom can create, and which is nevertheless the best training for life." So nowadays gangs of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... together, and while there is no want of men to admire the graceful movement of the hand. Mere children are constantly seen using it. It is a ludicrous thing to watch one of these little creatures going through a set of flirting motions with a fan, should you look at her, copying no doubt the motions or play with it from those of some grown-up sister ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... lying dead under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in tunnel at Burnt Ridge. There had been a sudden outcry from the depths at high hot noontide one day, and John had rushed from his cabin—his young, foolish, flirting wife clinging to him—to answer that despairing cry of his imprisoned men. There was one exit that he alone knew which might be yet held open, among falling walls and tottering timbers, long enough to set them free. For one moment only the strong man hesitated ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... crowded by a gay crowd. On the Boulevard, Monsieur and Madame walk quietly along with their children. In the Champs Elysees honest mechanics and bourgeois are basking in the sun, and nurserymaids are flirting with soldiers. There is even a lull in the universal drilling. The regiments of Nationaux and Mobiles carry large branches of trees stuck into the ends of their muskets. Round the statue of Strasburg there is the usual crowd, and speculators are ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... Mrs. Aalbom sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... exclaimed. "Stuff and deception! Impudent flirting is what she is fond of, as long as she can get a good-for-naught like you, or an old numskull like that Tippengray, to ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... the old man, tripping off, flirting his hand hopelessly in the air—"if he had known you only ten minutes you would have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett



Words linked to "Flirting" :   toying, coquetry, frolic, play, flirt, gambol, romp, caper



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