flitting

Flit \Flit\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Flitted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Flitting}.] [OE. flitten, flutten, to carry away; cf. Icel.
   flytja, Sw. flytta, Dan. flytte. [root]84. Cf. {Fleet}, v.
   i.]
   1. To move with celerity through the air; to fly away with a
      rapid motion; to dart along; to fleet; as, a bird flits
      away; a cloud flits along.
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            A shadow flits before me.             --Tennyson.
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   2. To flutter; to rove on the wing. --Dryden.
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   3. To pass rapidly, as a light substance, from one place to
      another; to remove; to migrate.
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            It became a received opinion, that the souls of men,
            departing this life, did flit out of one body into
            some other.                           --Hooker.
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   4. To remove from one place or habitation to another. [Scot.
      & Prov. Eng.] --Wright. Jamieson.
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   5. To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
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            And the free soul to flitting air resigned.
                                                  --Dryden.
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Flitting \Flit"ting\, n.
   1. A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
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   2. A removal from one habitation to another. [Scot. & Prov.
      Eng.]
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            A neighbor had lent his cart for the flitting, and
            it was now standing loaded at the door, ready to
            move away.                            --Jeffrey.
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Flitting \Flitt"ing\, Flytting \Flytt"ing\, n.
   Contention; strife; scolding; specif., a kind of metrical
   contest between two persons, popular in Scotland in the 16th
   century. [Obs. or Scot.]

         These "flytings" consisted of alternate torrents of
         sheer Billingsgate poured upon each other by the
         combatants.                              --Saintsbury.
   [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
    

136 Moby Thesaurus words for "flitting":
      adrift, afloat, airborne, alternating, amorphous, brittle,
      capricious, changeable, changeful, circumforaneous, corruptible,
      deciduous, desultory, deviable, discursive, divagatory, dizzy,
      drifting, dying, eccentric, ephemeral, errant, erratic, evanescent,
      fading, fast and loose, fickle, fitful, fleeting, flickering,
      flighty, floating, fluctuating, fluttering, fly-by-night, flying,
      footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fragile, frail, freakish,
      fugacious, fugitive, gadding, giddy, gliding, gypsy-like, gypsyish,
      hovering, impermanent, impetuous, impulsive, inconsistent,
      inconstant, indecisive, infirm, insubstantial, irregular,
      irresolute, irresponsible, jet-propelled, landloping, mazy,
      meandering, mercurial, migrational, migratory, momentary, moody,
      mortal, mutable, nomad, nomadic, nondurable, nonpermanent, passing,
      perishable, rambling, ranging, restless, roaming, rocket-propelled,
      roving, scatterbrained, shapeless, shifting, shifty, short-lived,
      shuffling, spasmodic, spineless, straggling, straying, strolling,
      temporal, temporary, traipsing, transient, transitive, transitory,
      transmigratory, unaccountable, uncertain, uncontrolled,
      undependable, undisciplined, undurable, unenduring, unfixed,
      unpredictable, unreliable, unrestrained, unsettled, unstable,
      unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, vacillating,
      vagabond, vagrant, variable, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous,
      volant, volatile, volitant, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery,
      wavy, wayward, whimsical, winging, wishy-washy