Flitting

6 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Flit \Flit\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Flitted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Flitting}.] [OE. flitten, flutten, to carry away; cf. Icel.
     flytja, Sw. flytta, Dan. flytte. [root]84. Cf. {Fleet}, v.
     i.]
     1. To move with celerity through the air; to fly away with a
        rapid motion; to dart along; to fleet; as, a bird flits


        away; a cloud flits along.
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              A shadow flits before me.             --Tennyson.
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     2. To flutter; to rove on the wing. --Dryden.
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     3. To pass rapidly, as a light substance, from one place to
        another; to remove; to migrate.
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              It became a received opinion, that the souls of men,
              departing this life, did flit out of one body into
              some other.                           --Hooker.
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     4. To remove from one place or habitation to another. [Scot.
        & Prov. Eng.] --Wright. Jamieson.
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     5. To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
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              And the free soul to flitting air resigned.
                                                    --Dryden.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Flitting \Flit"ting\, n.
     1. A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
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     2. A removal from one habitation to another. [Scot. & Prov.
        Eng.]
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              A neighbor had lent his cart for the flitting, and
              it was now standing loaded at the door, ready to
              move away.                            --Jeffrey.
        [1913 Webster] Flitting

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Flitting \Flitt"ing\, Flytting \Flytt"ing\, n.
     Contention; strife; scolding; specif., a kind of metrical
     contest between two persons, popular in Scotland in the 16th
     century. [Obs. or Scot.]
  
           These "flytings" consisted of alternate torrents of
           sheer Billingsgate poured upon each other by the
           combatants.                              --Saintsbury.
     [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  flit
       n 1: a sudden quick movement [syn: {dart}]
       2: a secret move (to avoid paying debts); "they did a moonlight
          flit"
       v : move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart [syn: {flutter},
            {fleet}, {dart}]
       [also: {flitting}, {flitted}]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  flitting
       See {flit}

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  136 Moby Thesaurus words for "flitting":
     adrift, afloat, airborne, alternating, amorphous, brittle,
     capricious, changeable, changeful, circumforaneous, corruptible,
     deciduous, desultory, deviable, discursive, divagatory, dizzy,
     drifting, dying, eccentric, ephemeral, errant, erratic, evanescent,
     fading, fast and loose, fickle, fitful, fleeting, flickering,
     flighty, floating, fluctuating, fluttering, fly-by-night, flying,
     footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fragile, frail, freakish,
     fugacious, fugitive, gadding, giddy, gliding, gypsy-like, gypsyish,
     hovering, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconsistent,
     inconstant, indecisive, infirm, insubstantial, irregular,
     irresolute, irresponsible, jet-propelled, landloping, mazy,
     meandering, mercurial, migrational, migratory, momentary, moody,
     mortal, mutable, nomad, nomadic, nondurable, nonpermanent, passing,
     perishable, rambling, ranging, restless, roaming, rocket-propelled,
     roving, scatterbrained, shapeless, shifting, shifty, short-lived,
     shuffling, spasmodic, spineless, straggling, straying, strolling,
     temporal, temporary, traipsing, transient, transitive, transitory,
     transmigratory, unaccountable, uncertain, uncontrolled,
     undependable, undisciplined, undurable, unenduring, unfixed,
     unpredictable, unreliable, unrestrained, unsettled, unstable,
     unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, vacillating,
     vagabond, vagrant, variable, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous,
     volant, volatile, volitant, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery,
     wavy, wayward, whimsical, winging, wishy-washy