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COQUET (pronounced co-kette) , to simulate the arts of love-making, generally from motives of See also: personal vanity, to flirt; in a figurative sense, to. trifle or dilly-dally with anything
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The word is derived from the French eoqueter, which originally means, "to strut about like a See also: cock-See also: bird," i.e. when it desires to attract the hens
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The French substantive coquet, in the sense of "beau" or " lady-killer," was formerly commonly used in See also: English; but the feminine See also: form, coquette, now practically alone survives, in the sense of a woman who gratifies, her vanity by using her See also: powers of attraction in a frivolous or inconstant fashion
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Hence "to coquet," the See also: original and more correct form, has come frequently to be written "to coquette." Coquetry (Fr. coquetterie), primarily the See also: art of the coquette, is used figuratively of any dilly-dallying or "coquetting" and, by transference of idea, of any superficial qualities of attraction in persons or things
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" Coquet " is still also occasionally used adjectivally, but the more usual form is " coquettish "; e.g. we speak of a "coquettish manner;" or a "coquettish See also: hat." The crested humming-birds of the genus Lophornis are known as coquettes (Fr. coquets)
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