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Does flippant have a positive or negative connotation?
Consider the spatula, humble friend to many a cook: admire the pliancy with which it flips pancakes, eggs, your more wieldy cuts of meat. We’re not being flippant—that is, facetious or smart-alecky—utensils are important, and spatulas are particularly useful for understanding the origins of flippant. Flippant is believed to come from the English verb flip, which, in turn, is a supposed imitation of the sound of something (say, a flapjack) flipping. The earliest uses of flippant described flexible things (like a spatula) or nimble, spry people, capable of moving this way and that with ease. Soon enough, flippant began to be used not only for people fluent in their movements, but those whose words flow easily. To be this kind of flippant was once a good thing; however, as people who speak freely can sometimes speak more freely than propriety permits, English users eventually flipped the script on flippant, and the positive sense fell into disuse, bending to the "disrespectful" sense we know today.
Examples of flippant in a Sentence
Mordecai Richler, GQ, November 1997
… although she is neither solemn nor pontifical, she may be the least flippant advice columnist in the business.
—Ray Olson, Booklist, 1 May 1991
Despite its flippant name, the Greed Index has proven a remarkably prescient barometer of the market during the past 16 years.
—Richard E. Rustin, Wall Street Journal, 29 May 1984
He made a flippant response to a serious question.
his flippant comment that the poor save on taxes offended many people
Lily Ford, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Feb. 2025
Claiming ignorance or hyper-fixating on a flippant detail from the past gets us nowhere.
—Claire Franken, TVLine, 23 Feb. 2025
This isn’t a flippant analogy; during the Indian mutiny of 1857, British soldiers looted the Taj Mahal, removing rare gems and lapis lazuli.
—Ralph Leonard, The Atlantic, 4 Feb. 2025
The flippant response to the assassination of a health care executive is a symptom of a far deeper societal wound — a systemic failure that threatens the very foundation of our democratic promise.
—Dave Catalfamo, New York Daily News, 19 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for flippant
Cite this Entry
“Flippant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flippant. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
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flippant
adjective
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