flaneur

See also: Flaneur and flâneur

English

WOTD – 3 December 2009

Alternative forms

• flâneur

Etymology

From French flâneur (“loafer, idler, dawdler, loiterer”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /flɑːˈnɜː(ɹ)/, /flæˈnɜː(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /flɑˈnʊɚ/

Noun

flaneur (plural flaneurs)

1. One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace.

   Synonyms: ambler, saunterer, stroller, wanderer

   • 1873, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter VI, in The Parisians‎^[1], book IX:

     […] Bevil drew him up to the door-step of a house close by, where, on certain evenings, a well-known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly elsewhere—men of all callings; a club especially favoured by wits, authors, and the flaneurs of polite society.

   • 1875 January–December, Henry James, Jr., “Rowland”, in Roderick Hudson, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., published 1876, →OCLC, pages 14–15:

     It often seemed to Mallet that he wholly lacked the prime requisite of a graceful flâneur—the simple, sensuous, confident relish of pleasure.

   • 1909, Henry James, Italian Hours‎^[2]:

     Indeed I lost patience altogether, and asked myself by what right this informal votary of form pretended to run riot through a poor charmed flaneur’s quiet contemplations, his attachment to the noblest of pleasures, his enjoyment of the loveliest of cities.

   • 2009 October, Barry Estabrook, “Good Living”, in Gourmet, page 57:

     Portsmouth is a flaneur’s dream come true, a place that simply begs to be explored randomly and on foot.

   • 2014 August 23, Neil Hegarty, “Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin by Karl Whitney, review: 'a necessary corrective' [print version: Re-Joycing in Dublin, p. R25]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎^[3]:

     In observing Dublin in this way – its cultural and geographic context, its streets and skies, neighbours and wider world – Whitney is occupying consciously the role of flâneur, defined by Baudelaire as "a lounger or saunterer, an idle man about town", a gatherer of aesthetic impressions.

2. An idler, a loafer.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:idler

   • 1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 5, in This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II (The Education of a Personage), pages 282–283:

     The Byrons and Brookes who had defied life from mountain tops were in the end but flaneurs and poseurs, at best mistaking the shadow of courage for the substance of wisdom.

Derived terms

• cyberflaneur

Translations

one who wanders aimlessly

• Catalan: escombracarrers m or f
• Estonian: flanöör (et)
• Finnish: kuljeskelija (fi)
• French: promeneur (fr) m, baladeur (fr) m, flâneur (fr) m
• German: Flaneur (de) m
• Italian: bighellone (it) m, perdigiorno (it) m, vitellone (it) m
• Malay: pelanur, flanur
• Norwegian: flanør m
• Polish: włóczęga (pl)
• Russian: фланёр (ru) m (flanjór), бра́жник (ru) m (brážnik), гуля́ка (ru) m (guljáka), кути́ла (ru) m (kutíla)
• Spanish: vagante m or f, vagueante m or f, callejero m, azotacalles m or f (dated), paseante ocioso m, mirón (es) m, trotacalles m or f
• Swedish: flanör (sv) c

Verb

flaneur (third-person singular simple present flaneurs, present participle flaneuring, simple past and past participle flaneured)

1. To wander aimlessly or at a lounging pace. [since at least the 1860s]
   • 1867, The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance, page 64:

     Meantime, we flaneured about the Guernsey market, and a remarkable pretty sight it was this bright morning.

   • 2015, Bruce Bauman, Broken Sleep, Other Press, LLC, →ISBN:

     Still, I wrote him often, and although I missed him, through autumn I contentedly flaneured about. At Alchemy's Christmas break we flew to Paris and stayed at Nathaniel's flat on Rue du Cherche-Midi. The three of us would lahdidah to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we read Alchemy the French canon of subversive lit.

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

Anagrams

• -flurane, earnful, flurane, frenula, funeral, unflare

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

flaneur m (plural flaneurs, diminutive flaneurtje n)

1. A person who walks the city in order to experience it.
2. (Belgium) A saunterer; a lounger.

Related terms

• flaneren

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French flâneur.

Noun

flaneur m (plural flaneuri)

1. loafer, idler, dawdler, loiterer

Declension

Declension of flaneur

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) flaneur	flaneurul	(niște) flaneuri	flaneurii
genitive/dative	(unui) flaneur	flaneurului	(unor) flaneuri	flaneurilor
vocative	flaneurule		flaneurilor

References

• flaneur in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN