Meaning & use
flaneur
Last updated
a person who strolls city streets at leisure, observing life around them without any particular purpose
See it in a sentence
He spent his afternoons as a flaneur, wandering the boulevards and watching people go by.
The novel's narrator is a classic flaneur, drifting through Paris and noting its small dramas.
A note on using this word
Borrowed from French and closely tied to 19th-century Parisian literary culture; it carries a sense of thoughtful, observant wandering rather than aimless loitering.
Words with a similar meaning
idlerstroller
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