What's the difference between flibbertigibbet and flighty?

Flibbertigibbet


Definition:

  • (n.) An imp.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Priapic gadabouts in peephole codpieces hey-nonny-no-ing past plates of glazed pig as smouldering flibbertigibbets pout and motion to their jugs.
  • (2) I arrived there rather starry-eyed and naive and young, and didn't find it a hugely happy experience, because the women who were there permanently, not surprisingly, totally reasonably, thought, 'Who are these flibbertigibbets?'
  • (3) He said: "As to the prime minister, I'd rather have a man who knows his own mind, grasps the picture and sticks to his guns, rather than a shallow flibbertigibbet who has not had the guts to take on his own party, let alone find any ideas to change the country."
  • (4) She seems at pains to emphasise this fact, as if I might be about to dismiss her as a lightweight flibbertigibbet who thinks GDP is a brand of hair straightener.
  • (5) She says her team does not employ "young gregarious flibbertigibbets" and "we don't get rid of people just because they look older.
  • (6) She had started out as a teenage dancer on Top of the Pops before becoming a mainstay of 1980s Saturday morning children's TV: she played a roller-skating flibbertigibbet on Number 73 , and presented Motormouth .

Flighty


Definition:

  • (a.) Fleeting; swift; transient.
  • (a.) Indulging in flights, or wild and unrestrained sallies, of imagination, humor, caprice, etc.; given to disordered fancies and extravagant conduct; volatile; giddy; eccentric; slighty delirious.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And given the unappealing nature of some relatives and the flightiness of pals, sometimes Jacob’s ubiquitous punditry is all you’ve got.
  • (2) Far from being a ruthless dictator, the Kaiser, who changed his mind on an almost hourly basis in the runup to the war, was a flighty, indecisive leader who was quickly pushed aside by the generals once the war began.
  • (3) In Annie Hall she is basically herself: nervous, gauche, flighty and hilarious.
  • (4) The character, Carla May Wilks, is described as a flighty and self-centred woman who enjoys turning her hobbies into ill-fated business schemes.
  • (5) They are very flighty birds.” On 20 days each season, nine “guns” would arrive at Mawle’s farm.
  • (6) Directed by Judd Apatow, Trainwreck sees her play a flighty men’s magazine journalist whose string of one-night stands is brought to end when she unexpectedly falls for a physiotherapist (played by Bill Hader).
  • (7) And there are all sorts of people there, like a retired colonel and a famous lady clairvoyant and an angry young man and a flighty young thing – isn't this just a fascinating cast of characters?
  • (8) It is mightily irritating to find it still the case that, whenever a person or party is to be portrayed as feckless, fickle or flighty, we head straight for the big box of gender generalisations.
  • (9) The fear responses of adult laying hens of two lines, flighty and docile, were assessed in each of three commonly employed and widely differing test situations.
  • (10) Since the perception was that Facebook's growth had been driven by young people – who are known to be fickle and flighty in their affiliations – Facebook's share price came to be correlated with rumours that teens were, or were not, getting bored with it.
  • (11) There was also Marnie , in which Sean Connery coerces a flighty Hedren into a loveless marriage.
  • (12) It is precisely because that friend seems so new, young, fresh and perhaps flighty that you don't mind so much when it makes a hash of things and loses your precious data.
  • (13) There were no surprises from Scolari, who picked the team he was always going to pick, with Luis Gustavo and Paulinho providing a muscular central shield and cover for Dani Alves and Marcelo, a pair of fun but flighty full-backs.
  • (14) It may have been ever thus, but it's surely still worth saying: whenever a party or an institution or even a country is to be portrayed as feckless, fickle or flighty, writers head straight for the big book of gender generalisations.
  • (15) "From a Lady to a lover, who suspects her of receiving the addresses of another" was a model letter full of extenuating ammunition for the flighty.

Words possibly related to "flibbertigibbet"