flaneur

From French flâneur (“loafer, idler, dawdler, loiterer”).

flaneur (plural flaneurs)

1. One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace.
   • 2009, Barry Estabrook, Gourmet October 2009, "Good Living", page 57:

     Portsmouth is a flaneur’s dream come true, a place that simply begs to be explored randomly and on foot.

   • 2014 August 23, Neil Hegarty, “Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin by Karl Whitney, review: 'a necessary corrective' [print version: Re-Joycing in Dublin, p. R25]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎:

     In observing Dublin in this way – its cultural and geographic context, its streets and skies, neighbours and wider world – Whitney is occupying consciously the role of flâneur, defined by Beaudelaire as "a lounger or saunterer, an idle man about town", a gatherer of aesthetic impressions.

2. An idler, a loafer.

• (wanderer): ambler, saunterer, stroller, wanderer
• (idler): See Thesaurus:idler

• cyberflaneur

flaneur (third-person singular simple present flaneurs, present participle flaneuring, simple past and past participle flaneured)

1. To wander aimlessly or at a lounging pace. [since at least the 1860s]
   • 1867, The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance, page 64:

     Meantime, we flaneured about the Guernsey market, and a remarkable pretty sight it was this bright morning.

   • 2015, Bruce Bauman, Broken Sleep, Other Press, LLC (→ISBN):

     Still, I wrote him often, and although I missed him, through autumn I contentedly flaneured about. At Alchemy's Christmas break we flew to Paris and stayed at Nathaniel's flat on Rue du Cherche-Midi. The three of us would lahdidah to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we read Alchemy the French canon of subversive lit.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:flaneur.

• earnful, flurane, frenula, funeral

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flaneur m (plural flaneurs, diminutive flaneurtje n)

1. A person who walks the city in order to experience it.
2. (Belgium) A saunterer; a lounger.

• flaneren