coquetry

Noun

coquetry (countable and uncountable, plural coquetries)

1. Coquettish behaviour; actions designed to excite erotic attention, without intending to reciprocate such feelings (chiefly of women towards men); flirtatious teasing.
   • With a lover […] her sensibility will naturally lead her to endeavour to excite emotion, not to gratify her vanity, but her heart. This I do not allow to be coquetry, it is the artless impulse of nature […]1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC
2. (countable) An act constituting such behaviour; an affectation of amorous interest or enticement, especially of a woman directed towards a man.
   • The little coquetries, which are as natural to a gay young girl as her laughter, were all in full play, and had she gone no further no harm would have been done.1882, Louisa M. Alcott, Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories
   • The mischievous pleasure of her coquetries was forgotten, and in a rush of glad confidence she felt a woman's pride in him.1910, Geraldine Bonner, The Emigrant Trail