Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An idle, dissolute fellow; a paramour or boon companion; a gay or dissolute person of either sex. See first extract under frank, adjective, 5.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A paramour; a loose woman; also, a gay, idle fellow.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A cheerful, frivolous person, a silly man; a loose woman.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin uncertain.

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Examples

Comments

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  • From "A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg" by Guy Davenport.

    January 19, 2010

  • Might not be found a francker franion,/ of her leawd parts to make companion:

    Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, C.2, 37, 1-2

    November 7, 2014

  • It's rhyme that will keep a man young,
    For prose is a morose companion.
    But what's even worse?
    That strumpet free verse!
    That chattering, frivolous franion.

    November 7, 2014