flippant

1595, from Northern English dialectal flippand (“prattling, babbling, glib”), present participle of flip (“to babble”), of North Germanic origin. Cognate with Icelandic fleipa (“to babble, prattle”), Swedish dialectal flepa (“to talk nonsense”). Alteration of -and suffix (a variant of the participial -ing) to -ant probably due to influence from words in -ant.

• (US, UK) IPA^(key): /ˈflɪ.pənt/

flippant (comparative more flippant, superlative most flippant)

1. (archaic) glib; speaking with ease and rapidity
   • Barrow

     It becometh good men, in such cases, to be flippant and free in their speech.

2. (chiefly dialectal) nimble; limber.
3. Showing disrespect through a casual attitude, levity, and a lack of due seriousness; pert.
   • Burke

     a sort of flippant, vain discourse

   • 1998, Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

     The conversations had grown more adult over the years—she was less flippant, at least.

   • 2000, Anthony Howard and Jason Cowley, Decline and Fall, New Statesman, March 13, 2000

     In the mid-1950s we both wrote for the same weekly, where her contributions were a good deal more serious and less flippant than mine.

   • 2004, Allen Carr, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, page 147

     Our society treats smoking flippantly as a slightly distasteful habit that can injure your health. It is not. It is drug addiction.

• See also Thesaurus:cheeky

• serious

• flippancy

• irreverent
• pert
• facetious
• frivolous

• flippant in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• flippant in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

• IPA^(key): /fli.pɑ̃/

flippant (feminine singular flippante, masculine plural flippants, feminine plural flippantes)

1. (Europe, informal) Surprising.
2. (Europe, informal) Worrying; scary.

flippant

1. present participle of flipper

• “flippant” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).