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
My private opinyun ov a coquet iz, that if they suckceed in dieing an old maid, they don’t deserve all the punishment they receive.
From The Complete Works of Josh Billings by Henry W. Shaw
"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 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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
—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
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 duke of Parma, who had coquetted for some time with the French monarch, was won over to Spain by the restoration of Placentia, of which he had been despoiled by Charles the Fifth.
From History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Vols. 1 and 2 by William Hickling Prescott
She should have remembered he was not to be coquetted with.
From Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill
The idle wits frequented the public walks, coquetted, and made madrigals.
From Priests, Women, and Families by Jules Michelet
Youth, in its divinely suited garb of white, regarded itself with grave eyes for one breathless minute, flushed and coquetted with itself for another, and then was gone from the mirror.
From The Wishing Moon by Louise Elizabeth Dutton
Footnote 17: A coquetting with virtue as a virtuoso, of course Gaspard means.
From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul
He had not been by while she was coquetting with Lothar.
From The Eichhofs A Romance by Moritz von Reichenbach
The ostler watched her pick her way towards her master, coquetting with her head, and sidling round him in the most playful manner possible.
From The Black Moth A Romance of the XVIIIth Century by Georgette Heyer
Summer zephyrs were coquetting with the sombre pine-branches; summer-scents were stealing up to Jessie's windows from the garden.
From Jessamine A Novel by Marion Harland
Emmie sang two more songs, Julia laughing and coquetting with Ethan over prelude and interlude; and then Julia played a nocturne.
From The Open Question a tale of two temperaments by Elizabeth Robins
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.
