Definition of "flit"

The other end of the bar was full of flits. They weren't too flitty-looking—I mean they didn't have their hair too long or anything—but you could tell they were flits anyway.

1951, J. D. Salinger, chapter 18, in The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company

A shadow flits before me, / Not thou, but like to thee; […]

1855, Tennyson, Maud

There were many apes with faces similar to his own, and further over in the book he found, under "M," some little monkeys such as he saw daily flitting through the trees of his primeval forest. But nowhere was pictured any of his own people; in all the book was none that resembled Kerchak, or Tublat, or Kala.

1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co.; republished as “Chapter 6”, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June,

By their means it became a received opinion, that the souls of men departing this life, do flit out of one body into some other.

1597, Richard Hooker, chapter 5, in Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie‎

The chevalier's manner was now completely altered; and Francesca wondered within herself that he could be so amusing, as he exerted himself to describe the various visitors who flitted to and fro.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), pages 116–117

After this manner did the late Warden of Barchester Hospital accomplish his flitting, and change his residence.

1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, page 199

[…] we can't give any one house-room just now, for every Christmas Eve such a pack of Trolls come down upon us that we are forced to flit, and haven't so much as a house over our own heads, to say nothing of lending one to any one else.

1859, “The Cat on the Dovrefell”, in George Dasent, transl., Popular Tales from the Norse

the free soul to flitting air resign'd

1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

And in his hand two darts exceeding flit, / And deadly sharpe he held [...].

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie