flit

From Middle English flitten, flytten, from Old Norse flytja (“to move”), from Proto-Germanic *flutjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow; run”). Cognate Icelandic flytja, Swedish flytta, Danish flytte, Norwegian flytte, Faroese flyta. Compare also Saterland Frisian flitskje (“to rush; run quickly”).

• IPA^(key): /flɪt/

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• Rhymes: -ɪt

flit (plural flits)

1. A fluttering or darting movement.
2. (physics) A particular, unexpected, short lived change of state.

   My computer just had a flit.

3. (dated, slang) A homosexual.
   • 1951, J. D. Salinger, chapter 18, in The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, OCLC 287628:

     The other end of the bar was full of flits. They weren't too flitty-looking—I mean they didn't have their hair too long or anything—but you could tell they were flits anyway.

• moonlight flit

flit (third-person singular simple present flits, present participle flitting, simple past and past participle flitted)

1. To move about rapidly and nimbly.
   • 1855, Tennyson, Maud:

     A shadow flits before me, / Not thou, but like to thee; […]

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., OCLC 17392886; republished as “Chapter 6”, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914, OCLC 1224185:

     There were many apes with faces similar to his own, and further over in the book he found, under "M," some little monkeys such as he saw daily flitting through the trees of his primeval forest. But nowhere was pictured any of his own people; in all the book was none that resembled Kerchak, or Tublat, or Kala.

2. To move quickly from one location to another.
   • 1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, Chapter 5:

     By their means it became a received opinion, that the souls of men departing this life, do flit out of one body into some other.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, pages 116–117:

     The chevalier's manner was now completely altered; and Francesca wondered within herself that he could be so amusing, as he exerted himself to describe the various visitors who flitted to and fro.

3. (physics) To unpredictably change state for short periods of time.

   My blender flits because the power cord is damaged.

4. (UK, dialect) To move house (sometimes a sudden move to avoid debts).
   • 1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, →ISBN, page 199:

     After this manner did the late Warden of Barchester Hospital accomplish his flitting, and change his residence.

   • 1859, George Dasent (tr.), Popular Tales from the Norse, "The Cat on the Dovrefell":

     […] we can't give any one house-room just now, for every Christmas Eve such a pack of Trolls come down upon us that we are forced to flit, and haven't so much as a house over our own heads, to say nothing of lending one to any one else.

5. To move a tethered animal to a new, grazing location.
6. To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432:

     the free soul to flitting air resign'd

• dart
• dash
• flirt
• lunge

flit (comparative more flit, superlative most flit)

1. (poetic, obsolete) Fast, nimble.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     And in his hand two darts exceeding flit, / And deadly sharpe he held [...].

• ILTF, lift

flit

1. Alternative form of flyt

flit m (definite singular fliten, uncountable)

1. (pre-2012) alternative form of flid m

From Proto-West Germanic *flit.

• IPA^(key): /flit/

flit n

1. argument, fight
2. arguing, fighting
3. contest, competition

• By the written period, flit almost exclusively appears in compounds; otherwise the synonym ġeflit is used. See there for usage notes, and for evidence that the /i/ is short.

• flitcræft
• flitfull
• flitġeorn
• flitmǣlum
• ġeflit
• sundflit

• flītan

flit (third-person singular simple present flits, present participle flittin, simple past flittit, past participle flittit)

1. To move house.
2. To flit.

• munelicht flittin

From Old Swedish flit, from Middle Low German vlīt, vlît (cognate with German Low German Fliet, Saterland Frisian Fliet, Dutch vlijt, Danish flid, Norwegian Bokmål flid, Norwegian Nynorsk flit, and German Fleiß, Fleiss).

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flit c

1. diligence, industriousness, energy

   där flitens lampa brinner

   where [someone] works long hours

• flitbetyg
• flitig
• flitpengar

• med flit (“on purpose”)

• flit in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• flit in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

• filt

flit m (definite flitn, dative flitåm)

1. Fly-Tox (insecticide)