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
If she really loved him, would she coquet with him like this—would she so pretend?
From The Hoyden by Duchess
The Graces from the court did next provide Breeding, and wit, and air, and decent pride: These Venus cleans'd from ev'ry spurious grain Of nice coquet, affected, pert, and vain.
From The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 by Browning, William Ernst
You might almost as well coquet with a minister of the holy Gospel as with him you have selected to try your fascinations on.
From A Romantic Young Lady by Grant, Robert
"The second is richer, but your choice c'est plus coquet."
From White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
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
A bright red rose showed among the manifold braids of her black hair, and she had in her hand a rose-colored fan, with which she coquetted very prettily.
From A Reconstructed Marriage by Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston
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 Fee, Mary Helen
She coquetted, human-fashion, with the gold-and-black dog—at one moment affecting to scorn him, at another meeting his advances with a delighted friendliness.
From Lad: A Dog by Terhune, Albert Payson
Peter glowed with rage to think all the world could penetrate this slight transparency; he burned with jealous fury as Eveline smiled, coquetted, cast glances here, there, and was stared at through a hundred opera-glasses.
From Black Diamonds by Jókai, Mór
He must have been couching somewhere, the funny old rogue, behind the Pole; he must have been coquetting with the beauties of Greenland or Nova Zembla.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 4 by Various
Somebody has accused me of coquetting with history.
From Famous Prima Donnas by Strang, Lewis Clinton
Yes, by dividing cord wood into stove lengths, toying with the spade, coquetting with big bundles of grain.
From Revisiting the Earth by Hill, James Langdon
Footnote 17: A coquetting with virtue as a virtuoso, of course Gaspard means.
From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul
Otherwise his career had been much like other careers, denouncing, or coquetting and even pressing for office, equable in expectation, and vindictive if refused.
From Lord Chatham His Early Life and Connections by Rosebery, Archibald Phillip Primrose
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.
