verb
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to behave flirtatiously
-
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
Have I played the coquet with you, Juancho?
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 by Various
It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its infinitesimal stars—-red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst—blazing, splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him.
From The Black Opal by Katharine Susannah Prichard
—Yes, yesterday, then they had been able to make plans, Maurits and she, how she should coquet with uncle, but to-day she had no thought of carrying them out.
From Invisible Links by Selma Lagerlöf
They are, he thinks, dilettanti, sentimentalists, who coquet with the misery of the masses, in order to serve the same up well spiced and warmed to their luxurious and fashionable readers.
From The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 by Various
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
The idle wits frequented the public walks, coquetted, and made madrigals.
From Priests, Women, and Families by Jules Michelet
It is wonderful how you have coquetted with every reason which may excuse our marriage except the only one that justifies it.”
From The Locusts' Years by Mary Helen Fee
In the mean time Emma and Rose cooed and coquetted with each other in the very best of spirits, until a late hour, when they both went quietly to sleep.
From The Pearl of Love or, Josey's Gift by Madeline Leslie
She spread out her fan in the highest good-humour and coquetted behind it.
From The Black Moth A Romance of the XVIIIth Century by Georgette Heyer
She was more like herself now, laughing softly and coquetting with the hole in the cave.
From Nobody's Child by Elizabeth Dejeans
With Heine, too, who at that time was coquetting with Communism, he carried on a sprightly and not unfruitful intercourse.
From The life and teaching of Karl Marx by M. Beer
The conjurer twists first one, then two, butterflies out of a bit of white paper, and, by means of a fan, causes them to fly and poise as if they were coquetting with July breezes.
From From the Oak to the Olive A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey by Julia Ward Howe
Remember, no vagaries, no irregularities, no coquetting with the ‘one time that never hurts one.’
From The Little Vanities of Mrs. Whittaker A Novel by John Strange Winter
Somebody has accused me of coquetting with history.
From Famous Prima Donnas by Lewis Clinton Strang
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