Etymology

flehmen

F4L1E1H4M3E1N1

Today it means: Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming. Full definition →

German flehmen ← sxu flemmen
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flehmen · verb, noun1

  1. sxu · derived fromflemmen“to look spiteful”
  2. German · borrowed fromflehmen
  3. English todayflehmen

From German flehmen, from Upper Saxon German flemmen (“to look spiteful”).

Flehmen · noun2

Capitalized apparently due to the mistaken belief that the word (used in compounds like flehmen response) was an eponym.

Words from the same roots

Germanflehmen all →

flehm

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.