Flaneur
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace. One who walks to observe and enjoy rather than to get somewhere.
"[…]Bevil drew him up to the door-step of a house close by, where, on certain evenings, a well-known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly elsewhere—men of all callings; a club especially favoured by wits, authors, and the flaneurs of polite society."
- 2 An idler, a loafer.
"The Byrons and Brookes who had defied life from mountain tops were in the end but flaneurs and poseurs, at best mistaking the shadow of courage for the substance of wisdom."
- 1 To wander aimlessly or at a lounging pace. To walk to observe and enjoy rather than to get somewhere.
"Meantime, we flaneured about the Guernsey market, and a remarkable pretty sight it was this bright morning."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"[…]Bevil drew him up to the door-step of a house close by, where, on certain evenings, a well-known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly elsewhere—men of all callings; a club especially favoured by wits, authors, and the flaneurs of polite society."
Etymology
From French flâneur (“loafer, idler, dawdler, loiterer”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.