flippant

adjective

flip·pant ˈfli-pənt

Synonyms of flippant

: lacking proper respect or seriousness

archaic : glib, talkative

flippantly adverb

Did you know?

Does flippant have a positive or negative connotation?

Consider the spatula, humble friend to many a cook: admire the pliancy with which it flips pancakes, eggs, your more wieldy cuts of meat. We’re not being flippant—that is, facetious or smart-alecky—utensils are important, and spatulas are particularly useful for understanding the origins of flippant. Flippant is believed to come from the English verb flip, which, in turn, is a supposed imitation of the sound of something (say, a flapjack) flipping. The earliest uses of flippant described flexible things (like a spatula) or nimble, spry people, capable of moving this way and that with ease. Soon enough, flippant began to be used not only for people fluent in their movements, but those whose words flow easily. To be this kind of flippant was once a good thing; however, as people who speak freely can sometimes speak more freely than propriety permits, English users eventually flipped the script on flippant, and the positive sense fell into disuse, bending to the "disrespectful" sense we know today.

Examples of flippant in a Sentence

As far as he was concerned, we were an unforgivably flippant bunch. Louche. Our shared political stance … struck him as pathetically naive. —Mordecai Richler, GQ, November 1997

… although she is neither solemn nor pontifical, she may be the least flippant advice columnist in the business. —Ray Olson, Booklist, 1 May 1991

Despite its flippant name, the Greed Index has proven a remarkably prescient barometer of the market during the past 16 years. —Richard E. Rustin, Wall Street Journal, 29 May 1984

He made a flippant response to a serious question. his flippant comment that the poor save on taxes offended many people

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

The art of bluffing in itself, which is what the movie is all about, isn’t something to be flippant about. —Lily Ford, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Feb. 2025 Claiming ignorance or hyper-fixating on a flippant detail from the past gets us nowhere. —Claire Franken, TVLine, 23 Feb. 2025 The Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni controversy has dominated social media for weeks, reaching its peak last Saturday when Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds, appeared at the SNL 50 event and delivered a flippant joke about the situation. —Gemma Allen, Forbes, 19 Feb. 2025 This isn’t a flippant analogy; during the Indian mutiny of 1857, British soldiers looted the Taj Mahal, removing rare gems and lapis lazuli. —Ralph Leonard, The Atlantic, 4 Feb. 2025 See All Example Sentences for flippant