What's the difference between flit and flite?

Flit


Definition:

  • (v. i.) 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.
  • (v. i.) To flutter; to rove on the wing.
  • (v. i.) To pass rapidly, as a light substance, from one place to another; to remove; to migrate.
  • (v. i.) To remove from one place or habitation to another.
  • (v. i.) To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
  • (a.) Nimble; quick; swift. [Obs.] See Fleet.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) From his 19th-floor newsroom Eurípedes Alcântara enjoys a spectacular view over the "new Brazil"; helicopters flit through the afternoon sky, shiny new cars honk their way across town, tower blocks and luxury shopping centres sprout like turnips from the urban sprawl.
  • (2) I try not to flit between characters too much because I don't like that either.
  • (3) Facebook Twitter Pinterest He commands the screen even when silent, his pain flitting across that gaunt, ravaged face … Sean Bean in Broken.
  • (4) In our own time, Brooke has become the haunting symbol of a doomed generation, flitting across the pages of novels by Alan Hollinghurst and AS Byatt like a volatile and irreverent Peter Pan.
  • (5) The social group that is most affected by this kind of work is also known as the "precariat": they live and work insecurely, flitting between short-term dead-end jobs, without an occupational identity or opportunity to develop themselves.
  • (6) Cardinale made them at the same time, flitting from Fellini's modernist, black-and-white vision of Rome to Visconti's sumptuous recreation of 19th-century Sicily.
  • (7) It is hugely disappointing that President Trump is making the mistake in rowing back on the Paris agreement,” she said, “Climate change is a very real global issue that affects the successful future of our planet.” Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory said the decision “creates the risk of a domino effect” that could put the target of keeping temperature rises below 2C (3.6F) out of reach, though he held out hope that global talks can make greater progress in reducing fossil fuels and promoting renewable energy in the absence of a country that has flitted back and forth between leadership and obstruction.
  • (8) The 1970s then saw Spark flitting edgily between a harsh, lurid satire and something close to the French nouveau roman.
  • (9) Ozil is an impudent playmaker who usually flits behind the lone striker, finding space and creating opportunities with his sublime left foot.
  • (10) At first, he refused to speak, preferring to communicate by eye contact alone You’d glimpse him around the Hotel de Paris: a shadow flitting between the marble colonnades.
  • (11) If they are poor, it wants them to be invisible, flitting uncomplainingly from one menial job to the next.
  • (12) Film-buyers flit around, desperately trying to discover which films are beeping on their rivals' radar, and to establish what is being bought and by whom.
  • (13) Balding was equally comfortable flitting between the two.
  • (14) She didn’t need all these superficial connections with people that many of us have as we flit about the world from one social occasion to another.
  • (15) Unlike the supremely adapted swallow aeronauts that skimmed the grass in the pastures and would shortly be migrating, the redstart merely flitted between perches on broad wings that seem better suited to following the erratic flight of an insect than to long-distance travel.
  • (16) As I hob-nobbed with friends, family and the invited guests of the RI at the drinks reception beforehand, my mind kept flitting back to my notes.
  • (17) And so he flits from past to present and back again, making connections with a wry and scathing wit.
  • (18) The patient presented with fever, flitting polyarthritis and an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate.
  • (19) Flitting between at least three properties nestled on white sand beaches and manicured golf courses, he applied for temporary residency and even enrolled on the country's electoral register.
  • (20) His songs were the soundtrack to my life: a quavering New York voice with little range singing songs of alienation and despair, with flashes of impossible hope and of those tiny, perfect days and nights we want to last for ever, important because they are so finite and so few; songs filled with people, some named, some anonymous, who strut and stagger and flit and shimmy and hitch-hike into the limelight and out again.

Flite


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To scold; to quarrel.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Yet if you want to hear of Miss Flite, the Snagsbys, Mrs Rouncewell, the Smallweeds, Krook and others, then I shall have to refer you to the original text: for now be content to meet Mr Guppy, the young lawyer, who has noticed an uncommon resemblance between My Lady Dedlock and Miss Esther Summerson.
  • (2) We note your celebration of the strength and resilience of disabled people: Jenny Wren, whose body is twisted and painful and who makes her career as a dolls' dressmaker; Phil Squod, who can't walk straight and is disfigured, and who is hard-working, loyal and kind; Miss Flite, whose madness sees the truth; crazy Barnaby; hairless Maggie; Sloppy, whose head is too small.