Word.ws English Dictionary

philander

Syllables: phi·lan·der/fɪˈlændə/US/fɪˈlændəɹ/

philander noun: a lover.

Noun

philander (plural philanders)

  1. A lover.
    • Yes, I'll baste you together, you and your Philander!1700, [William] Congreve, The Way of the World, a Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
  2. A South American opossum, bare-tailed woolly opossum, of species Caluromys philander (syn. Didelphis philander).
  3. (obsolete) A greater bilby, an Australian marsupial of species Macrotis lagotis (syn. Perameles lagotis).

Verb

philander (third-person singular simple present philanders, present participle philandering, simple past and past participle philandered)

  1. (intransitive) To woo women; to play the male flirt.
    • You can't be philandering after her again.1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], Daniel Deronda, volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    womanize, womanise

philander meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

philander in Malayalam

flirt, womanize, have affairs
ശൃംഗരിക്കുക, സ്ത്രീലോലുപത്വം കാട്ടുക, പല സ്തീകളുമായി ലെെംഗികബന്ധം പുലർത്തുക, സ്ത്രീസേവ ചെയ്യുക, കൊണിക്കുക, ശൃംഗാരം പ്രകടിപ്പിക്കുക

philander in Kannada

ಸೋಗಳುಗು

Synonyms of philander

Forms of philander

Noun
pluralphilanders
Verb
third-person singular presentphilanders
present participlephilandering
past participlephilandered
pastphilandered

Origin of philander

As a verb, first seen in the 1824 play Philandering: Or, The Rose Queen, by Samuel Beazley. From the given name Philander, used for love interest or suitor stock characters in several 18th century stories and poems, from Ancient Greek Φίλανδρος (Phílandros), name of the mythological son of the nymph Acacallis and the god Apollo. Semantically disconnected from the adjective φίλανδρος (phílandros, “loving one’s husband; excessively attracted to males, slutty, boy crazy”).

Words formed from philander

Questions about philander

What does philander mean?
Philander means a lover.
What is philander in Malayalam?
Philander in Malayalam is ശൃംഗരിക്കുക, സ്ത്രീലോലുപത്വം കാട്ടുക, പല സ്തീകളുമായി ലെെംഗികബന്ധം പുലർത്തുക. See Philander meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is philander?
Philander can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce philander?
Philander is pronounced /fɪˈlændə/ (UK).
What is the plural of philander?
The plural of philander is philanders.

Words near philander in the dictionary

  1. philaids
  2. philalethia
  3. philalethist
  4. philalethists
  5. philamot
  6. philander
  7. philandered
  8. philanderer
  9. philanderers
  10. philanderess
  11. philanderesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: philander (page history and authors); philander (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); philander (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-philander.wav.

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