flaunt

 
Pronunciation: /flɔːnt/

verb

[with object]
  • display (something) ostentatiously, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance: newly rich consumers eager to flaunt their prosperity
  • (flaunt oneself) dress or behave in a sexually provocative way.

Derivatives

flaunter

noun

flaunty

adjective

Origin:

mid 16th century: of unknown origin

Flaunt and flout may sound similar but they have different meanings. Flaunt means ‘display ostentatiously’, as in visitors who liked to flaunt their wealth, while flout means ‘openly disregard a rule or convention’, as in new recruits growing their hair and flouting convention. It is a common error, recorded since around the 1940s, to use flaunt when flout is intended, as in the young woman had been flaunting the rules and regulations. In the Oxford English Corpus the second and third commonest objects of flaunt, after wealth, are law and rules.