Flit

//flɪt// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fluttering or darting movement.
  2. 2
    A flow control unit or flow control digit.

    "header flit"

  3. 3
    a secret move (to avoid paying debts) wordnet
  4. 4
    A sudden departure from a property.

    "I did a flit, as the landlord was due to arrive to collect the rent."

  5. 5
    a sudden quick movement wordnet
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  1. 6
    A particular, unexpected, short lived change of state.

    "My computer just had a flit."

  2. 7
    A homosexual. dated, slang

    "The other end of the bar was full of flits. They weren't too flitty-looking—I mean they didn't have their hair too long or anything—but you could tell they were flits anyway."

Verb
  1. 1
    To move about rapidly and nimbly.

    "A shadow flits before me, / Not thou, but like to thee; […]"

  2. 2
    move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart wordnet
  3. 3
    To move quickly from one location to another.

    "By their means it became a received opinion, that the souls of men departing this life, do flit out of one body into some other."

  4. 4
    To unpredictably change state for short periods of time.

    "My blender flits because the power cord is damaged."

  5. 5
    To move house (sometimes a sudden move to avoid debts). UK, dialectal

    "After this manner did the late Warden of Barchester Hospital accomplish his flitting, and change his residence."

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  1. 6
    To move a tethered animal to a new grazing location.
  2. 7
    To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.

    "the free soul to flitting air resign'd"

Adjective
  1. 1
    Fast, nimble. obsolete, poetic

    "And in his hand two darts exceeding flit, / And deadly sharpe he held [...]."

Synonyms

All synonyms
bustleadvanceaeroplaneair speedairliftairplane

Example

More examples

"The watchers from the plain below could see them flit from rock to rock until their figures stood out against the skyline."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English flitten, flytten, from Old Norse flytja (“to move”), from Proto-Germanic *flutjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow; run”). Cognate Icelandic flytja, Swedish flytta, Danish flytte, Norwegian flytte, Faroese flyta. Compare also Saterland Frisian flitskje (“to rush; run quickly”).

Etymology 2

Short for fl(ow control un)it or fl(ow control dig)it.

Related phrases

do a flitdo a moonlight flitmoonlight flitmove house

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