flair
[flair]
noun
a natural talent, aptitude, or ability; bent; knack: a flair for rhyming.
smartness of style, manner, etc.: Their window display has absolutely no flair at all.
keen, intuitive perception or discernment: We want a casting director with a real flair for finding dramatic talent.
Hunting. scent; sense of smell.
RELATED CONTENT
Lexical Investigations: FlairThe word flair has been around in English for a long time—since the mid-14th century—however, the senses that most English speakers are familiar with did not enter English until much later. While the noun form of flair entered English from the Old French word of the same spelling, this term ultimately came from the Late Latin verb fragrare, which meant “to smell sweet.” It might …
RELATED WORDS
ability, gift, taste, mastery, elegance, glamour, genius, aptitude, knack, shine, pizzazz, head, panache, bent, zip, presence, feel, accomplishment, aptness, dash
Nearby words
- flaherty,
- flaherty, robert joseph,
- flail,
- flail chest,
- flail joint,
- flak,
- flak jacket,
- flak suit,
- flake,
- flake out
Origin of flair
1350–1400; Middle English < French, Old French: scent, noun derivative of flairier to reek ≪ Vulgar Latin *flāgrāre, dissimilated variant of Latin frāgrāre. See fragrant
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for flair
flair
1noun
Word Origin for flair
C19: from French, literally: sense of smell, from Old French: scent, from flairier to give off a smell, ultimately from Latin frāgrāre to smell sweet; see fragrant
noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
flair
mid-14c., "an odor," from Old French flair "odor or scent," from flairer "to smell," from Vulgar Latin *flagrare, dissimilated from Latin fragrare "emit (a sweet) odor" (see fragrant). Sense of "special aptitude" is American English, 1925, perhaps from notion of a hound's ability to track scent.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper