How to Use flippant in a Sentence

flippant

adjective
  • He made a flippant response to a serious question.
  • This doesn’t mean that Christians should be flippant about death.
    — Daniel Darling, National Review, 10 Apr. 2020
  • Or maybe, at the risk of seeming too flippant, that comma should be a colon.
    — Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press, 27 Apr. 2023
  • The episode’s flippant tone and use of stereotypes rubbed many viewers the wrong way.
    — Harmeet Kaur, CNN, 7 Oct. 2022
  • Axiom itself has been more flippant about word usage in the past.
    — Jackie Wattles, CNN, 8 Apr. 2022
  • Axiom itself has been more flippant about word usage in the past.
    — Jackie Wattles, CNN, 9 Apr. 2022
  • The five words that make up the album title aren't random or flippant.
    — Melonee Hurt, The Tennessean, 16 May 2024
  • The book is a little cold, a little nasty, a little flippant.
    — New York Times, 10 Aug. 2021
  • The video then shows all the flippant ways younger employees sign emails to their older boss.
    — Sheila Callaham, Forbes, 25 Apr. 2022
  • Trixie nailed the flirty, flippant vibe of the song, while Pearl just looked mad the whole time.
    — Stephen Daw, Billboard, 3 Mar. 2022
  • The art of bluffing in itself, which is what the movie is all about, isn’t something to be flippant about.
    — Lily Ford, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Feb. 2025
  • To veer away from this register runs the risk of sounding flippant, even cruel.
    — Rhian Sasseen, The Atlantic, 14 Oct. 2024
  • Waller-Bridge found a way to be clever and flippant and yet moving in her loneliness.
    — Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, 11 July 2019
  • Musk is known for roiling markets with his sometimes flippant and ill-advised tweets.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 8 Nov. 2021
  • Or explain his feelings in more detail to avoid sounding flippant.
    — Star Tribune, 5 Sep. 2020
  • The next-man-up mentality was going to play a role and make their approach feel flippant at times.
    — Dan Labbe, cleveland, 19 Nov. 2020
  • Biden’s flippant answer was grossly mistaken, to say the least.
    — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 16 July 2022
  • The title sounds a lot more flippant than this novel actually is.
    — Locke Hughes, NBC News, 30 Aug. 2019
  • The breakout star of the series was sassy, smart, urbane and flippant Lance Loud.
    — Tim Sommer, Billboard, 25 June 2019
  • What’s meant as friendly can easily come across as awkward, flippant, or unclear.
    — Nirit Cohen, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • For me, the flippant dialogue muddied the tone around Bela’s assault.
    — Ashley Bardhan, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2021
  • Ugh, spending money on food after a fun Amazon order feels so flippant but a girl’s gotta eat.
    — R29 Team, refinery29.com, 24 June 2024
  • Chick lit was flippant and fizzy and fun, above all, as effervescent and guiltless as a vodka soda.
    — Hillary Busis, Vanity Fair, 4 May 2026
  • Yet as idiosyncratic as the mixture can be, Horn is never flippant about her choices.
    — Celia Barbour, House Beautiful, 14 Sep. 2013
  • Wilcox and Graves described it in interviews as a flippant comment, fired off in the heat of the moment.
    — Marilyn W. Thompson, ProPublica, 18 Jan. 2024
  • At first the flippant tone of some of these scenes seems a bit off, but the movie (full of narrative curves) eventually makes tonal sense.
    — Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Later in the episode, Seema tells Carrie how hurtful this flippant comment was to her.
    — Sabrina Weiss, Peoplemag, 16 Nov. 2022
  • Honor Among Thieves is not without its flippant pleasures, most of them courtesy of the cast.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 11 Mar. 2023
  • Most of my 20s were spent acting flippant toward little ones, showing no signs of mercy.
    — Zoe Wilder, Good Housekeeping, 15 June 2015
  • Drug use is flippant and rampant, the music is big and gaudy, and none of the shots were actually filmed on the island or in its clubs.
    — Kat Bein, Billboard, 26 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'flippant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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