Literary notes about Fleer (AI summary)
Throughout literature, "fleer" is used to signify a scornful or derisive laugh, a gesture imbued with contempt or zealous mockery. Writers deploy it to characterize individuals who disdain social conventions or express rebellious irreverence; for instance, characters sometimes "fleer and scorn" in response to solemn situations, highlighting their dismissive attitude ([1], [2]). In some narratives, the term even appears in unexpected contexts, subtly evoking images of fleeting or shifting phenomena as light dances upon surfaces ([3], [4]). Over time, its usage has enriched the tone of dialogue and description alike, allowing authors—be they satirical commentators or tragi-comic dramatists—to layer their characters with complex, often ambivalent, shades of derision ([5], [6]).
- What dares the slave Come hither, cover'd with an antic face , To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
— from Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - What, dares the slave Come hither, cover’d with an antic face, To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
— from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - It was half open, and the moon’s licht danced in on the fleer.
— from From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New by Gordon Stables - The night wind sweeps through all the room, The tapers fleer and flare, And from the portal's outer gloom
— from Lays and Legends (Second Series) by E. (Edith) Nesbit - Bob has gained his point, despite a parting fleer from Bessy as to the undesirability of neglecting the Creator for the creature.
— from Red as a Rose is She: A Novel by Rhoda Broughton - Methinks I meet across the gulf his clear And tranquil eye; his calm reflections chime With mine: "Why do we at the present fleer?
— from The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X)
