[f. next vb.] The action of flitting. a. A removal. b. A light movement, as of a bird’s wing; a flutter; a light touch.
a. 1835. N. P. Willis, in L’Estrange, Friendships Miss Mitford (1882), I. 289. A flit from London and a visit to Reading.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., s.v. Flit.… ‘A moonlight flit,’ a decampment by night with the furniture, to cheat the landlord.
b. 1873. Miss Thackeray, Old Kensington, xii. 99. It seemed to him, though he could not clearly see them, that there were ghosts sitting on the chairs, denizens of the kingdom of mystery, and that there was a vague flit and consternation in the darkness at the farther end of the room, when through the opening door the gleam of the lantern, which by this time was travelling upstairs, sped on with a long slanting flash.
1877. Blackmore, Erema, III. liv. 242. An idea or a flit of fancy touched me. Ibid. (1880), Mary Anerley, xxvi. Bob clapped a piece of soft York bread into the hollow of his broad brown palm, moistened it with sugary dregs of ale, such as that good city loves, and kneading it firmly with some rapid flits of thumb, tempered and enriched it nobly with the mellow juice of quid.
