Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Dalliance; flirtation.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Effort to attract admiration, notice, or love, from vanity or for amusement; affectation of amorous tenderness; trifling in love.
- noun Synonyms See
flirtation .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Attempts to attract admiration, notice, or love, for the mere gratification of vanity; trifling in love.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
affectation ofamorous tenderness , especially of a woman directed towards a man.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word coquetry.
Examples
-
When he was gone, she scolded me, and reproached me with what she called my coquetry and imprudence; I could not bear her injustice, and very rashly replied, that no one had a right to blame me when my own conscience absolved me.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 1, January, 1864 Various
-
'And what if I tell you that I know it -- that in the very employment of the arts of what you call coquetry, I am but exercising those powers of pleasing by which men are led to frequent the salon instead of the café, and like the society of the cultivated and refined better than --'
Lord Kilgobbin Charles James Lever 1839
-
Love has its piece of bread, but it has also its science of loving, that science which we call coquetry, a delightful word which the
The Physiology of Marriage, Complete Honor�� de Balzac 1824
-
Love has its piece of bread, but it has also its science of loving, that science which we call coquetry, a delightful word which the
The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1 Honor�� de Balzac 1824
-
Love has its piece of bread, but it has also its science of loving, that science which we call coquetry, a delightful word which the
Analytical Studies Honor�� de Balzac 1824
-
Still, pleasant as her recollections were, she often looked back self-reproachfully upon passages of her youth; and Sainte-Beuve, though he calls her coquetry "_une coquetterie angelique_," recognizes it as a blemish.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 Various
-
I dread that she should acquire preposterous notions of love, of happiness, from the furtive perusal of vulgar novels, or from the clandestine conversation of ignorant waiting-maids: – I dread that she should acquire, even from the enchanting eloquence of Rousseau, the fatal idea, that cunning and address are the natural resources of her sex; that coquetry is necessary to attract, and dissimulation to preserve the heart of man.
Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which is Added, An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification 1798
-
Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at least equally to blame.
-
He called my attention to what he led me to term coquetry between my wife and this young man.
Chapter XII 1917
-
Because a handsome girl has had a spark of coquetry, that is no reason. &cdq;
The Europeans 1878
oroboros commented on the word coquetry
COquetrY
May 13, 2008