coquetry

• coquettery

From French coquetterie.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒkɪtɹi/, /ˈkəʊkətɹi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊkətɹi/

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coquetry (countable and uncountable, plural coquetries)

1. Coquettish behaviour; actions designed to excite erotic attention, without intending to reciprocate such feelings (chiefly of women towards men); flirtatious teasing.
   • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792, →OCLC:

     With a lover […] her sensibility will naturally lead her to endeavour to excite emotion, not to gratify her vanity, but her heart. This I do not allow to be coquetry, it is the artless impulse of nature […]

2. (countable) An act constituting such behaviour; an affectation of amorous interest or enticement, especially of a woman directed towards a man.
   • 1882, Louisa M. Alcott, Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories‎:

     The little coquetries, which are as natural to a gay young girl as her laughter, were all in full play, and had she gone no further no harm would have been done.

   • 1910, Geraldine Bonner, The Emigrant Trail‎:

     The mischievous pleasure of her coquetries was forgotten, and in a rush of glad confidence she felt a woman's pride in him.

   • 1913, Carolyn Wells, Patty's Social Season‎:

     "Her pretty little coquetries are like the gambols of a kitten.

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:coquetry.

• flirtation

• “coquetry”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• coquetry in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913