Fleer
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Mockery; derision. archaic, uncountable
"[…] And flattery tipt with nauseous fleer, And guilty shame, and servile fear, Envy, and cruelty, and pride, Will in your tainted heart preside."
- 2 One who flees.
"Which fear of the fleers away was no less ignominious, then if[…]they had turned their backs to the enemie."
- 3 contempt expressed by mockery in looks or words wordnet
- 4 someone who flees from an uncongenial situation wordnet
- 1 To make a wry face in contempt, or to grin in scorn archaic
"LEONATO. Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old."
- 2 to smirk contemptuously wordnet
- 3 To grin with an air of civility; to leer. archaic
"In the time of popery, before the gospel came amongst us, we went to burials with weeping and wailing, as though there were no God: but since the gospel came unto us, I have heard say, that in some places they go with the corses grinning and flearing, as though they went to a bear-baiting;[…]"
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"LEONATO. Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old."
Etymology
Possibly from a Scandinavian source, compare Norwegian bokmål flire (“to giggle”), Jutish Danish flire.
From flee + -er.
More for "fleer"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.