Vive la difference between ‘flaunt’ and ‘flout’

4 comments July 25th, 2008

Early in Mel Brooks’ first movie, “The Producers,” the down-on-his-luck character played by Zero Mostel looks out a window to see a white Rolls-Royce and shouts, “That’s it, baby, when you got it, flaunt it!”

The verbs “flaunt” and “flout” have been known to cause confusion. “Flaunt,” used correctly in the film, is “to make a gaudy, ostentatious, conspicuous, impudent or defiant display.”

It’s the defiant aspect that also appears in “flout”: “to mock or scoff at; show scorn or contempt for” or “to openly disregard, as by rejecting, defying or ignoring.”

Adding to the potential for crossover, it’s often people who are flaunting their own perceived authority who flout that of others – the leader of a nation who openly disregards its laws, for instance.

I prefer emphasizing how the two words are different: To “flaunt” is to show off, and to “flout” is to show contempt.