It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for March 28th.

Today's word is flout, spelled FL-O-U-T is a verb. To flout something such as a law or

rule is to treat it with contemptuous disregard. A teenager flouting a curfew, for example, will not

hide the fact that they are out past the time they are required to be home.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Times by Lauren LeBlanc.

Bringing a queer sensibility and a deep understanding of modern Orthodox Jewish tradition to novel writing,

Temim Fruchter asks whether finding comfort in mystery is a viable alternative to standard

happy endings or bleak fates.

City of Laughter argues that flouting convention makes space for more authentic expansive

stories and more authentic expansive lives. If you flout a rule or societal norm, you ignore it without hiding what you're doing or showing fear or shame.

You flout it out in the open.

The similar sounding word flaunt, FL-A-U-N-N-T is sometimes used in the same way, though that words older and more common meaning

is to display ostentatiously, as in people who flaunt their wealth.

Critics have been objecting to the confusion of these two words since the early 1900s, but use

of flaunt with the meaning to treat with contemptuous disregard is found in even published, polished, edited writing.

And so that meaning is included in dictionaries as an established use of the word.

Nonetheless, you may want to avoid it.

There are many still who judge harshly those who they feel are flouting proper English usage.

With your word of the day I'm Peter Sakhalowski.

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