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PlainSpell

gallivant

/ˈɡæl.ɪ.vænt/verb

gallivant is a verb meaning “To roam about for pleasure without any definite plan” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-A-L-L-I-V-A-N-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 42 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does gallivant mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To roam about for pleasure without any definite plan.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo flirt, to romance.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce gallivant?

  • UK /ˈɡæl.ɪ.vænt/
  • US /ˈɡæl.ɪ.vænt/
  • US /ˌɡæl.əˈvænt/

Gallivant has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-gallivant.ogg, En-au-gallivant.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of gallivant

  • gallivants present, singular, he/she/it
  • gallivanting participle, present
  • gallivanted participle, past
  • galavant
  • gallavant

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is gallivant?

Gallivant appears about once in every 42 million words in written English, the 199,120th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Gallivant in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchflâner (roam about for pleasure), flirter, conter fleurette (flirt, romance)
Germanherumstreunen, herumbummeln (roam about for pleasure), flirten, schäkern (flirt, romance)
Spanishpasear, callejear, yirar, ruar (roam about for pleasure)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does gallivant come from?

1809, from gallant (“wooing women”), originally in sense “to flirt”, broadened to mean “roaming without plan”.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).