verb
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to behave flirtatiously
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to dally or trifle
Etymology
Origin of coquet
1685–95; < French; literally, cockerel, equivalent to coq cock + -et -et
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A: I'm afraid I was a bit of a coquet in my youth, but now that I'm a grandmother with an 18-year-old granddaughter, I'm simplifying what I wear.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 1, 2010
The petty kings themselves began now to coquet with Tehrak, and to invite his co-operation in an attempt, which they promised they would make, to throw off the yoke of the Assyrians.
From Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson
The lover continues his doleful lamenting, which is at last interrupted by the entrance of the May Queen herself, who chides him for his complaints and argues her right to coquet on such a day.
From The Standard Cantatas Their Stories, Their Music, and Their Composers by George P. (George Putnam) Upton
Coquets, and prudes, ought tew be compelled to hunt in couples, so that when the coquet haz wounded the game, the prude kan nuss the dieing viktim.
From The Complete Works of Josh Billings by Henry W. Shaw
His Letters shew him to have lived in a continual fever of petty vanity, and to have been a finished literary coquet.
From Lectures on the English Poets Delivered at the Surrey Institution by Alfred Rayney Waller
Madame coquetted with him in the most captivating and naive manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the Colonel’s old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
I don't believe that Helen Rankine coquetted with you.
From Eleven Possible Cases by Franklin Fyles
For some time her pen coquetted with country trifles, as if the writer were trying to escape from an unpleasant topic which nevertheless forced itself into notice, and at last banished every other.
From Trevethlan: (Vol 2 of 3) A Cornish Story. by William Davy Watson
And as he spoke he smiled and coquetted with the portrait, as though to say, "Don't mind my saying all this to your face."
From The Fortunes Of Glencore by Charles James Lever
An', father,"—here she coquetted with him—"you and mother are not to 'nopolize him when he comes.
From The Angel of the Gila: A Tale of Arizona by Cora Marsland
The goldfinches swept by overhead with a gleam of colour from their wings, coquetting on their way to the apple-trees.
From Greene Ferne Farm by Richard Jefferies
Will they be outweighed by the preservation of one's self-respect, and is not this, after all, a matter of opinion?--is it not a sort of coquetting with one's self?
From A Twofold Life by Wilhelmine von Hillern
He was exactly fitted to hew his way to the Presidency, and he would have done so infallibly if he had not made the mistake of coquetting with slavery.
From Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 (of 2) The True Story of a Great Life by William H. Herndon
Somebody has accused me of coquetting with history.
From Famous Prima Donnas by Lewis Clinton Strang
But strange to say, in 1830 we find Francis actually coquetting with revolution.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 8 "France" to "Francis Joseph I." by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
