coquetry KOH-ki-tree; koh-KE-tree, noun:
Dalliance; flirtation.
'You were probably very bored by it,' he said, catching at once, in mid-air, this ball of coquetry that she had thrown to him.
-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Her pose, quite natural for a woman of the East, might perhaps in a Frenchwoman, have suggested a slightly affected coquetry.
-- Alexandre Dumas père, The Count of Monte Cristo
Madame coquetted with him in the most captivating and naive manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the Colonel's old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders. Edna marveled, not comprehending. She herself was almost devoid of coquetry.
-- Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Coquetry, French coquetterie, is from coquette, the feminine form of French coquet, "flirtatious man," diminutive of coq, "rooster, c**k." The adjective form is coquettish. The verb coquet (also coquette) means "to flirt or trifle with."
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