flippant

comparative more flippant · superlative most flippant

1. Showing disrespect through a casual attitude, levity, and a lack of due seriousness; pert.

   a sort of flippant, vain discourse

   1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC

   3 more examples

   The conversations had grown more adult over the years—she was less flippant, at least.

   1998, Sylvia Brownrigg, The Metaphysical Touch

   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.

   2000, Anthony Howard, Jason Cowley, Decline and Fall, New Statesman, March 13, 2000

   Our society treats smoking flippantly as a slightly distasteful habit that can injure your health. It is not. It is drug addiction.

   2004, Allen Carr, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, page 147

2. archaicLoquacious; speaking with ease and rapidity.

   November 5, 1673, Isaac Barrow, sermon on the Gunpowder Treason It becometh good men, in such cases, to be pleasantly flippant and free in their speech.

3. dialectalNimble; limber.