How to use flit in a sentence

23 example sentences · noun, verb, adjective

Flit means a fluttering or darting movement. Example: “I did a flit, as the landlord was due to arrive to collect the rent.”

Examples of flit by meaning

nounA sudden departure from a property.

I did a flit, as the landlord was due to arrive to collect the rent.
let's do a moonlight flit, if the loanshark catches us here tomorrow without the money to pay our debts, he'll break our fingers.

nounA particular, unexpected, short lived change of state.

My computer just had a flit.

nounA homosexual.

The other end of the bar was full of flits.1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, chapter 18, in The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC

verbTo move about rapidly and nimbly.

the low buzz of insects flitting over the flowers
There were many apes with faces similar to his own, and further over in the book he found, under "M," some little monkeys such as he saw daily flitting through the trees of his primeval forest.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as...

verbTo unpredictably change state for short periods of time.

My blender flits because the power cord is damaged.

adjectiveFast, nimble.

To that god-trodden western shore, as flit benighted birds.1928, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, Sophocles’ King Oedipus: A Version of the Modern Stage, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC

More sentences with flit

Flitting dandies listed at windows to look at dummies closely bunched boutiques with exclusive fonts.2016, Frank Morris, The Pearl in the Diamond World, Morrisville, N.C.: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 59. From the entry symmetrophile
She flitted around the omnibus in a spiritish dance of joy.2009, Gail Dayton, Heart's Blood. From the entry spiritish
Sliding glass windows opened so the hummingbirds could flit through, siphoning nectar from the cut ginger lilies.2009, Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, page 21. From the entry ginger lily
Uncle Billy came home for the weekend to help with the flitting.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 87. From the entry flitting
And when Kate saw there was no other way to protect her they flitted across the sea.1987, Katharine Mary Briggs, Kate Crackernuts, Canongate Kelpies, →ISBN, page 206. From the entry overchief
Dolores flitted around the car, screaming like a banshee, her face bedizened with fury.1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 31, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →LCCN, page 240. From the entry bedizen
In the reddish mist his shadow flitted darkly across the mirrors on the walls.1930, Ivan Lukash, chapter VIII, in Natalie Duddington, transl., The Flames of Moscow: Translated from the Russian, London: Peter Davies…. From the entry darkly
Flitting from its perch; the huge bird circled again and flew down to a higher branch - still watching her.2019 January 10, Margaret Wiese, Margene Wiese-Baier, Wymans Creek, WestBow Press, →ISBN. From the entry surveiler
Silence rang in my ears, punctuated by the occasional gronk of the ravens, as they flitted about in the spruce trees.2006, Terrence Rundle West, Run of the Town, page 153. From the entry gronk
Sunbirds and butterflies flit, there are scrub turkeys rooting about the rainforest floor and a Tarzanic assembly of jungly vines and cabbage palms.2002 November 2, The Weekend Australian, Canberra, page 14. From the entry Tarzanic
He went into the compound to take the examination and was sitting in his cell when a girl came flitting down his lane.[1976, Ichisada Miyazaki, “The Provincial Examination and Reexamination”, in Conrad Schirokauer, transl., China's Examination Hell: The…. From the entry jinshi
“Which means, if the term is not familiar to you, a chap who flits hither and thither pinching everything he can lay his hands on.”1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC. From the entry hither and thither
He spends his days flitting through the woods with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting the many specimens he has acquired.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC. From the entry mount
For it is of their nature that the jabberwocks of historical and antiquarian research burble in the tulgy wood of conjecture, flitting from one tum-tum tree to another.1936, J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, published 1976, page 6. From the entry Jabberwock
Willie flits up, catches another insect, drops unconcernedly to his perch again, runs along the bullock's back in his bounding-jockey act, swallows his meal and announces he's a 'sweet-pretty-little-creature'.1934, Henry G[eorge] Lamond, An Aviary on the Plains, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson Limited, →OCLC, page 16. From the entry unconcernedly

Meaning of flit

noun A fluttering or darting movement.
noun A sudden departure from a property.
noun A particular, unexpected, short lived change of state.

Full definition of flit

Questions about flit in a sentence

How do you use flit in a sentence?: Flit is used as a noun, verb and adjective. For example: “I did a flit, as the landlord was due to arrive to collect the rent.”
What is a short sentence with flit?: “My computer just had a flit.”
What does flit mean?: Flit means a fluttering or darting movement.

Adapted from Wiktionary: flit (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use flit in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/flit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.