[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That flirts, in various senses of the vb.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 224/2.
| The wife that gads not gigglot wise with euerie flirting gill, | |
| But honestly doth keepe at home, not set to gossip still. |
1651. Fuller, Abel Rediv. (1867), II. 322. I know there have been some, even amongst us, who, either out of ignorance, envy, or proud disdain, or because in some things they accord not with him in opinion, have cast out flirting censures against this Catalogue.
1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, V. iii. Franc. Nothing vexes me, but that this flirting Gentlewoman should go before me.
1668. Sedley, Mulb. Gard., I. i.
| But that flirting Hat there looks as ’twere | |
| Made rather for your Wit than your Head. |
a. 1734. North, Exam., III. vii. (1740), 509. He could not bear such a flirting Wit and Libertine.
1819. E. S. Barrett, Metropolis, I. 215. ‘Did you’ (to the tabby Baronet’s relict) ‘observe how flirting and amatory a certain very great personage is?’
Hence Flirtingly adv., in a flirting manner.
1855. in Ogilvie, Suppl.
