Robert Browning
Flaunt vs. Flout: Usage Guide
Although the "treat contemptuously" sense of flaunt undoubtedly arose from confusion with flout, the contexts in which it appears cannot be called substandard.
Oscar Lewis
Marchette Chute
R. T. Blackburn, AAUP Bull.
If you use it, however, you should be aware that many people will consider it a mistake. Use of flout in the sense of "flaunt, parade" is found occasionally.
Mike Royko
Did you know?
If you flout a rule or societal norm, you ignore it without hiding what you're doing, or showing fear or shame; you flout it "out" in the open. The similar-sounding word flaunt is sometimes used in the same way, though that word's older and more common meaning is "to display ostentatiously," as in "people who flaunt their wealth." Critics have been objecting to the confusion of these two words since the early 1900s, but use of flaunt with the meaning "to treat with contemptuous disregard" is found in even polished, edited writing, and so that meaning is included in dictionaries as an established use of the word. Nonetheless, you may want to avoid it: there are still many who judge harshly those who (they feel) are flouting proper English usage.
Synonyms
Examples of flout in a Sentence
Sarah Yager, Foreign Affairs, 14 Jan. 2025
Some within the conservative camp have expressed alarm at the party’s embrace of a group that most mainstream conservatives had previously kept at arm’s length, as well as the persecution of legislators who have flouted the party line to support the president’s impeachment and arrest.
—Max Kim, Los Angeles Times, 10 Jan. 2025
But the fact of the call and its timing flouted any regard for even the appearance of a conflict of interest at a time when the Supreme Court has come under intense scrutiny over the justices’ refusal to adopt a more rigorous and enforceable ethics code.
—Jonathan Swan, New York Times, 10 Jan. 2025
That was the key to Texas Pacific's landmark SCG deal — and shows how Bonderman flouts common wisdom.
—Kerry A. Dolan, Forbes, 11 Dec. 2024
See all Example Sentences for flout 
Dictionary Entries Near flout
Cite this Entry
“Flout.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flout. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
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