Word.ws English Dictionary

flibbertigibbet

UK/ˌflɪbətiˈdʒɪbɪt//ˈflɪbɚtiˌd͡ʒɪbɪt/

flibbertigibbet noun: an offbeat, skittish person; especially said of a young woman.

Noun

flibbertigibbet (plural flibbertigibbets)

  1. An offbeat, skittish person; especially said of a young woman.
    • All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet.1969, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., chapter 2 (pages 19–42), in Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death, Vintage edition (1991 paperback), London: Vintage Books, published 2000...
  2. A flighty person; someone regarded as silly, irresponsible, or scatterbrained, especially someone who chatters or gossips.
    • “Thou flibbertigibbet,” cried Catwezle, who had been listening, “all is clear as springwater. This Rapkyn was a sorcerer!”1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 50
    • ‘Ignorant girls. Dizzy young things. It seems to be my fate always to be landed with these flibbertigibbets.’2009, Jennifer Worth, Farewell to the East End, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, page 171
  3. (archaic) An imp, a fiend.

flibbertigibbet meaning in Kannada

flibbertigibbet in Kannada

ತಲೆಹುಳುಕ

Forms of flibbertigibbet

pluralflibbertigibbets

Origin of flibbertigibbet

From late Middle English [Term?] first attested 1549 probably imitative of nonsense uttered by gossips. Usage as an imp or fiend and name of the Devil from around 1603. Alternatively (but far less likely), an alteration of flibbergib (“toady, sycophant”), derived potentially from an Old Norse *fleipra-geipa(re) (“babbler of nonsense”). The hypothetical Old Norse term would have been a compound of fleipra (a variant of fleipa (“to babble, tattle”)), and geipa (“to talk nonsense, to boast”) or geipare (“one who speaks nonsense, braggart”). fleipa is notably the ancestor to the flip- part of the English word flippant. It is of note that the original meaning of flibbergib was “chatterer”.

Words formed from flibbertigibbet

Questions about flibbertigibbet

What does flibbertigibbet mean?
Flibbertigibbet means an offbeat, skittish person; especially said of a young woman.
What is flibbertigibbet in Kannada?
Flibbertigibbet in Kannada is ತಲೆಹುಳುಕ. See Flibbertigibbet meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is flibbertigibbet?
Flibbertigibbet is a noun.
How do you pronounce flibbertigibbet?
Flibbertigibbet is pronounced /ˌflɪbətiˈdʒɪbɪt/ (UK).
What is the plural of flibbertigibbet?
The plural of flibbertigibbet is flibbertigibbets.

Words near flibbertigibbet in the dictionary

  1. FLI
  2. fliable
  3. flibanserin
  4. flibbergib
  5. flibbergibs
  6. flibbertigibbet
  7. flibbertigibbets
  8. flibbertigibbety
  9. flibberty-gibbet
  10. flibberty-gibbets
  11. flibbets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flibbertigibbet (page history and authors); flibbertigibbet (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-flibbertigibbet.ogg.

Cite this entry: “flibbertigibbet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flibbertigibbet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.