Word.ws English Dictionary

gallavant

gallavant is the alternative form of gallivant.

Meaning of gallivant

Verb

gallivant (third-person singular simple present gallivants, present participle gallivanting, simple past and past participle gallivanted)

  1. (intransitive) To roam about for pleasure without any definite plan.
    • Bertram, it is true, when he heard of the plan, rebelled, and asserted that what Billy needed was a rest, an entire rest from care and labor. In fact, what he wanted her to do, he said, was to gallivant – to gallivant all day long.1914, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 18, in Miss Billy – Married, page 214
    Synonyms:
    gad
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To flirt, to romance.
    • 'That you never go gallivanting with Chloe again. You both "don't mean anything", but suppose you did happen to get the girl discharged with a very dubious character? Should you see any alternative to behaving either as a fool or a knave to put it right?'1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

Forms of gallavant

third-person singular presentgallavants
present participlegallavanting
past participlegallavanted
pastgallavanted

Questions about gallavant

What is gallavant the alternative form of?
Gallavant is the alternative form of gallivant.

Words near gallavant in the dictionary

  1. Gallatin County
  2. Gallatin Range
  3. Gallaudet
  4. gallaunt
  5. gallaunts
  6. gallavant
  7. gallavanted
  8. gallavanting
  9. gallavants
  10. Gallaway
  11. Gallaways

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gallavant (page history and authors); gallivant (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.

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