gill-flirt
(ˈdʒɪlflɜːt)
Also 7–8 Jil(l)-flirt.
[f. gill n.4 + flirt n. 5; cf. flirt-gill.]
A young woman or girl of a wanton or giddy character. Now only arch.
| 1632 Sherwood, A Gill, or gill-flirt [Cotgr. 1611 has ‘gill, flirt’, s.v. Gaultiere]. 1673 Wycherley Gentl. Dancing-Mast. iii, 'Tis your dainty Minx, that Jillflirt your Daughter here. 1754 Foote Knights ii. Wks. 1799 I. 84 How! gill⁓flirt!—none of your fleers! I am glad here's a husband coming that will take you down. 1822 Scott Nigel v, She is a dutiful girl to her godfather, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. V. 609 A beautiful gillflirt of the court (minaudière). |
| attrib. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 203 No brazen-faced gipsy, like Sally Wheeler..or the jill-flirt Phœbe. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 91 How much has she not owed of late to the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt sister Thalia? 1881 A. J. Duffield Don Quix. II. 405 Thy skull is..empty; mine is more pregnant than ever was the gill-flirt drab which bore thee. |
So
† gill-flirting ppl. a.| 1696 Southerne Oroonoko iv. i, The young jil-flirting girls, forsooth, believe no Body must have a husband but themselves. |