philander
UK /fɪˈlændə/ · US /fɪˈlændəɹ/ noun, verb
Forms philanders philandering philandered
- noun A lover.
- noun A South American opossum, bare-tailed woolly opossum, of species Caluromys philander (syn. Didelphis philander).
- noun (obsolete) A greater bilby, an Australian marsupial of species Macrotis lagotis (syn. Perameles lagotis).
- verb (intransitive) To woo women; to play the male flirt.
Synonyms
womanize womanise chat up flirt dally butterfly coquet coquette romance mash
Etymology
As a verb, first seen in the 1824 play Philandering: Or, The Rose Queen, by Samuel Beazley. From the given name Philander, used for love interest or suitor stock characters in several 18th century stories and poems, from Ancient Greek Φίλανδρος (Phílandros), name of the mythological son of the nymph Acacallis and the god Apollo. Semantically disconnected from the adjective φίλανδρος (phílandros, “loving one’s husband; excessively attracted to males, slutty, boy crazy”).
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “philander”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details