Slippery vs Flippant - What's the difference?
slippery | flippant | Related terms |
Of a surface, having low friction, often due to being covered in a non-viscous liquid, and therefore hard to grip, hard to stand on without falling, etc.
(figuratively, by extension) Evasive; difficult to pin down.
(obsolete) Liable to slip; not standing firm.
* 1602 , , III. iii. 84:
unstable; changeable; inconstant
* Denham
(obsolete) wanton; unchaste; loose in morals
* 1610 , , I. ii. 273:
(archaic) glib; speaking with ease and rapidity
* Barrow
nimble; limber.
Showing disrespect through a casual attitude, levity, and a lack of due seriousness; pert.
* Burke
* 1998 , , The Metaphysical Touch
* 2000 , Anthony Howard and Jason Cowley, Decline and Fall, New Statesman, March 13, 2000
* 2004 , , The Easy Way to Stop Smoking , page 147
Slippery is a related term of flippant.
As adjectives the difference between slippery and flippant
is that slippery is of a surface, having low friction, often due to being covered in a non-viscous liquid, and therefore hard to grip, hard to stand on without falling, etc while flippant is (archaic) glib; speaking with ease and rapidity.slippery
English
Adjective
(er)- Oily substances render things slippery .
- a slippery person
- a slippery promise
- Which when they fall, as being slippery' standers, / The love that leaned on them, as ' slippery too, / Do one pluck down another, and together / Die in the fall.
- The slippery state of kings.
- My wife is slippery ? If thou wilt confess –
Derived terms
* slippery as an eel * slippery elm * slippery nipple * slippery slopeSynonyms
* (of a surface) greasy, slick, slimy, slippy, wetAntonyms
* (of a surface) stickyflippant
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- It becometh good men, in such cases, to be flippant and free in their speech.
- a sort of flippant , vain discourse
- The conversations had grown more adult over the years—she was less flippant , at least.
- In the mid-1950s we both wrote for the same weekly, where her contributions were a good deal more serious and less flippant than mine.
- Our society treats smoking flippantly as a slightly distasteful habit that can injure your health. It is not. It is drug addiction.