flânerie means idling about, dawdling about, loafing about. It carries an Arena rating of 1615, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, flânerie ranks #2,393 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #2,830 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,041 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #3,476 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
Why “flânerie” is a great word
The act or habit of strolling or lounging about in a leisurely, aimless manner, especially in an urban environment. Borrowed from French flânerie, a noun of action from flâner ("to stroll, saunter, idle"), itself possibly from Old Norse flana ("to wander aimlessly"). Unlike "boulevardier," which denotes a socially sophisticated man frequenting fashionable cafés, or "sauntering," which merely describes a slow, relaxed gait, flânerie is a method of existence. It is the solitary figure who slows his pace to match the rhythm of a stranger's conversation, who pauses to watch light dissolve across a wet cobblestone, who follows a dog down an unmarked alley simply to see where it leads—an assertion that observation itself is a form of production, and that the unhurried eye may harvest more than the purposeful hand.
Etymology
Borrowed from French flânerie.
noun
- idling about, dawdling about, loafing about
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.