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  1. coquetry love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Dalliance; flirtation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Effort to attract admiration, notice, or love, from vanity or for amusement; affectation of amorous tenderness; trifling in love.
  2. n. Synonyms See flirtation.

Wiktionary

  1. n. An affectation of amorous tenderness, especially of a woman directed towards a man.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Attempts to attract admiration, notice, or love, for the mere gratification of vanity; trifling in love.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest

Etymologies

  1. From coquette +‎ -ry (Wiktionary)
  2. French coquetterie, from coquette, coquette; see coquette. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “When he was gone, she scolded me, and reproached me with what she called my coquetry and imprudence; I could not bear her injustice, and very rashly replied, that no one had a right to blame me when my own conscience absolved me.”

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 1, January, 1864

  • “And what if I tell you that I know it -- that in the very employment of the arts of what you call coquetry, I am but exercising those powers of pleasing by which men are led to frequent the salon instead of the café, and like the society of the cultivated and refined better than --”

    Lord Kilgobbin

  • “Love has its piece of bread, but it has also its science of loving, that science which we call coquetry, a delightful word which the”

    The Physiology of Marriage, Part 1

  • “Still, pleasant as her recollections were, she often looked back self-reproachfully upon passages of her youth; and Sainte-Beuve, though he calls her coquetry "_une coquetterie angelique_," recognizes it as a blemish.”

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

  • “I dread that she should acquire preposterous notions of love, of happiness, from the furtive perusal of vulgar novels, or from the clandestine conversation of ignorant waiting-maids: – I dread that she should acquire, even from the enchanting eloquence of Rousseau, the fatal idea, that cunning and address are the natural resources of her sex; that coquetry is necessary to attract, and dissimulation to preserve the heart of man.”

    Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which is Added, An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification

  • “Bell Fermor and her lover: your friend has been indiscreet; her spirit of coquetry is eternally carrying her wrong; but in my opinion Fitzgerald has been at least equally to blame.”

    The History of Emily Montague

  • “He called my attention to what he led me to term coquetry between my wife and this young man.”

    Chapter XII

  • “Because a handsome girl has had a spark of coquetry, that is no reason. &cdq;”

    The Europeans

  • “I would not have invited the reader's attention to so trivial a matter, but to remark that everything is becoming to the beautiful; for indeed this peasant girl showed, in everything she said and did, a certain natural grace which could not be called coquetry unless you will so call an innate unconscious instinct.”

    Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 5

  • “Your prudence will suggest to you, "she added," that coquetry, which is not defensible in a maiden, is still more inexcusable in a wife.”

    The Wife; or, Caroline Herbert

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‘coquetry’ has been looked up 3169 times, loved by 4 people, added to 19 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 22.