flibbertigibbet

[flib-er-tee-jib-it]

noun

1. a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

2. Archaic.,  a gossip.

flibbertigibbet

/ ˈflɪbətɪˌdʒɪbɪt /

noun

1. an irresponsible, silly, or gossipy person

Word History and Origins

Origin of flibbertigibbet¹

1425–75; late Middle English flepergebet, flipergebet; reduplicative compound of obscure origin

Word History and Origins

Origin of flibbertigibbet¹

C15: of uncertain origin

Example Sentences

As Orlando, Duke of Oxford and the spy agency’s founder, Fiennes might read more cuddly than studly, but he lends a surprising gravitas to this flibbertigibbet feature.

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“My sister’s been painted as some flibbertigibbet socialite floating from party to party and leading a gilded life,” he said.

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Invariably described as a Renaissance man, Mr. Miller preferred terms like “flibbertigibbet,” once telling People magazine, “Things are always best when there has been a careless abandon about them.”

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That left Jonathan with lifelong feelings of guilt, which led him on several occasions to announce that he was abandoning what he once called “this footling flibbertigibbet world of theater.”

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Magnet ends his book with a gratuitous, even racist assault on Barack Obama, in which the former president’s mother is trashed as a “Kumbaya mother” and a “flibbertigibbet white mother.”

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