Robert Browning
Flaunt vs. Flout: Usage Guide
Although the "treat contemptuously" sense of flaunt undoubtedly arose from confusion with flout, the contexts in which it appears cannot be called substandard.
Oscar Lewis
Marchette Chute
R. T. Blackburn, AAUP Bull.
If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake. Use of flout in the sense of "flaunt, parade" is found occasionally.
Mike Royko
Did you know?
If you flout a rule or societal norm, you ignore it without hiding what you're doing, or showing fear or shame; you flout it "out" in the open. The similar-sounding word flaunt is sometimes used in the same way, though that word's older and more common meaning is "to display ostentatiously," as in "people who flaunt their wealth." Critics have been objecting to the confusion of these two words since the early 1900s, but use of flaunt with the meaning "to treat with contemptuous disregard" is found in even polished, edited writing, and so that meaning is included in dictionaries as an established use of the word. Nonetheless, you may want to avoid it: there are still many who judge harshly those who (they feel) are flouting proper English usage.
Examples of flout in a Sentence
Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 1 May 2025
Gonzalez Rogers also referred the case to federal prosecutors to investigate whether Apple committed criminal contempt of court for flouting her 2021 ruling.
—Josh Sisco, Los Angeles Times, 1 May 2025
Harvard also argued that by withholding funds, the Trump administration is violating the First Amendment, flouting federal law, and threatening life-saving research.
—Bill Hutchinson, ABC News, 29 Apr. 2025
The Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia is one that gave the administration some wiggle room in how to move forward, but lawyers for Abrego Garcia and others have accused the Trump administration of flouting the directive to seek his return.
—Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, 21 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for flout
Cite this Entry
“Flout.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flout. Accessed 17 May. 2025.
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