flighty
Americanadjective
-
given to flights of fancy; capricious; frivolous.
- Synonyms:
- irresponsible, undependable, mercurial
-
slightly delirious; light-headed; mildly crazy.
-
irresponsible.
He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.
-
Archaic. swift or fleet.
adjective
-
frivolous and irresponsible; capricious; volatile
-
mentally erratic, unstable, or wandering
-
flirtatious; coquettish
Other Word Forms
- flightily adverb
- flightiness noun
- unflighty adjective
Etymology
Origin of flighty
Explanation
If you're flighty, you're flaky and a little bit thoughtless. Flighty people change their minds and plans at the drop of a hat. Flighty people are unreliable and irresponsible — they often forget appointments, show up late, and change their minds about important things at the last minute. If you need help with something important, don't count on a flighty person for help. The original meaning of flighty, in the 1500's, was "swift" or "speedy." By the late 1700's, it had come to mean "fickle or frivolous," and was often used to describe skittish horses.
Vocabulary lists containing flighty
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
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"The Tragedy of Macbeth," Vocabulary from Act 4
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A Streetcar Named Desire
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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.
Other invitees include a flighty young woman named Theodora and the homeowner’s nephew Luke; they join the scheming Montague and the home’s caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026
Undertaking a new challenge every few years can show employers you’re ambitious, but not flighty.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 22, 2025
One insider who has been part of conversations about the chances of changing the leader says, "it's not flighty people, not just newbies without a clue, they're not idiots".
From BBC • Sep. 27, 2025
But it also turns him into a lonely, rigidly neoclassicist oddball who scorns his professors, prefers books to his flighty peers and still can’t seem to take care of himself.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 25, 2025
Most days, however, we rode our bikes as far away from home as we could get, a flighty brood of the tiny butterflies straggling behind us.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
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.
