| 释义 |
flippant, a.|ˈflɪpənt|
Also 7 flippent.
[app. f. flip v. (sense 5). Cf. flip a. used dial. in senses 1 and 2 below; an ablaut-var. of the root, with related meaning, occurs in ON. fleipr babble, fleipa (Sw. dial. flepa) to talk foolishly.
The suffix may possibly be an alteration of the ME. ppl. ending -inde -ing2, or the word may have been formed in 16th c. on the analogy of ppl. adjs. in -ant, such as the heraldic trippant.]
†1. Nimble, moving lightly or alertly; easily moved or managed, light to the hand; pliant, flexible, limber. Obs.
1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman D' Alf. i. 73 It is a bird of the flippantst wing, which as it moueth with most nimblenesse, so it doth the greatest mischiefe. 1677Earl of Orrery Art of War 26 Targets, though very flippent ones, have not only resisted the Push of the Pikes, but also [etc.]. Ibid. 27 The Pike..is carried tapering, to poise it the better, and thereby renders it the more flippent for those who use it. 1895Windsor Mag. July 21 ‘She weer flippant on 'er feet that night..an' tored hoff as fast as a wind-hover.’
†2. Of the tongue: ‘Nimble’, voluble. Hence of persons: Ready in the use of words, speaking freely, fluent, talkative, voluble. Of conversation or discourse: Fluent, sparkling. Obs.
1605Chapman All Fooles v. i, As for your mother, she was wise, a most flippant tongue she had. a1677Barrow Serm. I. 157 It becoming them not..to be dumpish..but..pleasantly flippant and free in their speech. 1677Miege Eng.-Fr. Dict., A flippant discourse, un discours coulant. 1711Addison Spect. No. 247 ⁋9 An excellent Anatomist has promised me to dissect a Woman's Tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain Juices, which render it so wonderfully voluble or flippant. a1784Johnson in Boswell an. 1765, She [Mrs. Thrale] is more flippant; but he has ten times her learning. 1794Gouv. Morris in Sparks Life & Writ. (1832) I. 427 The wines are good and the conversation flippant.
†b. In bad sense: Impertinently voluble. (Cf. 4.)
1677Miege Eng.-Fr. Dict., A flippant and forward woman, une coquete une libertine. 1727Gay Fables xii. 18 The husband's sullen, dogged, shy, The wife grows flippant in reply.
†3. Sportive, playful. Obs.
1711Steele Spect. No. 260 ⁋1, I am now as..flippant if I see a pretty Woman, as when in my Youth. 1719D'Urfey Pills (1872) VI. 156 Like Love's sprightly Goddess she's flippant and gay. 1784Cowper Task vi. 315 The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.
4. Displaying unbecoming levity in the consideration of serious subjects or in behaviour to persons entitled to respect.
1724Waterland Farther Vind. Wks. IV. 12 It very ill becomes this gentleman..to grow so exceeding flippant. 1781F. Burney Diary 26 June, I was reading Sherlock's flippant but entertaining letters. 1836H. Rogers J. Howe i. (1863) 14 That..peculiarity, which a flippant and superficial philosophy has sometimes charged upon the Scriptures as a blemish. 1838Dickens Nich. Nick. xix, The flippant contempt with which the guests regarded her uncle. 1877Mrs. Forrester Mignon I. 251 The flippant way in which she has treated his attentions.
5. absol. passing into n. A flippant person.
In first quot. Richardson seems to have thought the word was of It. origin, and fabricates a pseudo-It. plural.
[1748Richardson Clarissa VI. lxxviii. 291 It concerns me, however, not a little, to find our affair so generally known among the Flippanti of both sexes.] 1791Cowper Judgm. Poets 22 They gentle called, and kind and soft, The flippant and the scold. 1835Fraser's Mag. XII. 269 The flippants and pragmatics who infest all the highways of society. 1850Tennyson In Mem. cx, The stern were mild when thou wert by, The flippant put himself to school And heard thee.
Hence ˈflippantly adv., in a flippant manner; ˈflippantness, the quality of being flippant.
1727Bailey vol. II, Flippantness. 1758H. Walpole Lett. H. Mann (1834) III. cccxxii. 268 It is time for me to check my pen that asks so flippantly. 1791Boswell Johnson an. 1774 (1816) II. 298 note, Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, ‘Why do you put him up in the counting-house?’ 1817J. Gilchrist Intellect. Patrim. 84 The flippantness of French philosophers. 1880G. Meredith Trag. Com. (1881) 49 Flippantly tapping at the doors of thought. |