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07-28-2011 03:09 PM
verb
After graduating from college, Maureen spent a year gallivanting all over Europe before coming back home to find a job.
"I never was one to gallivant around in order to be seen. I was much more interested in looking." -- From Shirley MacLaine's 2011 book I'm Over All That: And Other Confessions
Back in the 14th century, a young man of fashion (or a ladies' man) was called a "gallant." By the late 1600s, "gallant" was being used as a verb to describe the process a paramour used to win a lady's heart; "to gallant" became a synonym of "to court." Etymologists think that the spelling of the verb "gallant" was altered to create "gallivant," which originally meant "to act as a gallant" or "to go about usually ostentatiously or indiscreetly with members of the opposite s-x." Nowadays, however, "gallivant" is more likely to describe wandering than romancing.
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