What does "flehmen" mean?

Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming.

What is a synonym for "flehmen"?

Common synonyms include: lipcurl.

//ˈfleɪmən// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming. countable, especially, uncountable
"During the preliminary phase of courtship between captive animals, Matthew Gaughwin observed flehmen on a number of occasions when the male sniffed intensely at areas of ground where the female had previously urinated and once when the male had sniffed the female's cloacal region."
2
Nonstandard form of flehmen. alt-of, no-plural, nonstandard

Verb

1
Alternative form of flehm. alt-of, alternative
"One can observe mucus dripping from the nostrils of stallions after they flehmen."

"One can observe mucus dripping from the nostrils of stallions after they flehmen."

Etymology 1

From German flehmen, from Upper Saxon German flemmen (“to look spiteful”).

Etymology 2

Capitalized apparently due to the mistaken belief that the word (used in compounds like flehmen response) was an eponym.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.