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/
• 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. (slang) A homosexual.
   • 1951, J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 18:

     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: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6

     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.

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

   My blender flits because the power cord is damaged.

4. (Britain, Scotland, dialectal) To move house (sometimes a sudden move to avoid debts).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Wright to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Jamieson to this entry?)

   • 1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, page 199 →ISBN

     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 be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
   • Dryden

     the free soul to flitting air resigned

• dart
• dash
• flirt
• lunge

flit (comparative more flit, superlative most flit)

1. (poetic, obsolete) Fast, nimble.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.iv:

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

• ILTF, lift

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

1. to move house
2. to flit

• munelicht flittin

Old Swedish flit, cognate with German Fleiss.

• Audio

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flit c

1. diligence, industriousness, energy

   där flitens lampa brinner

   where [someone] works long hours

• flitbetyg
• flitig
• flitpengar

• flit in Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (13th ed., online)
• flit in Svenska Akademiens ordbok online.

flit m (definite flitn, dative flitåm)

1. Fly-Tox (insecticide)