Etymology: < Old French flatere, flateour, flateur, agent-noun < flater to flatter v.¹

Etymology: < flat v.² + -er suffix¹.

Etymology: < flatter v.¹

Etymology: < flat n.³ 4b + -er suffix¹.

Etymology: Of somewhat doubtful etymology. In sense it represents Old French flate-r (modern French flatter ), = Provençal flatar ; the primary meaning of this word is believed to be ‘to flatten down, smooth’; hence ‘to stroke with the hand, caress’ (a sense still current in French); this sense, as well as that of Old French flater , -ir to dash to the ground, is plausibly accounted for by derivation from the Germanic word which we have as flat adj. The normal form which flat-er should assume when adapted into English is the rare Scots flat v.² As Middle English did not adapt French verbs by addition of a suffix -er to the stem, or adopt them in their infinitive form, the English flatter cannot be paralleled with German flattiren , Middle Dutch ˈflatteren , Swedish flattera , which are normally formed adaptations from the French; it might however have arisen by association of the verb with its derivatives, Old French flatere , -our flatter n.¹, and flaterie flattery n. More probably, however, the native flatter v.², an onomatopoeia expressive of light repeated movement, may have developed a sense resembling the primary sense of the French word, and hence have been accepted as its equivalent. Compare Old Norse flaðra, Middle Swedish flakra, flikra, to flatter, all probably of onomatopoeic origin. It may be significant that in the earliest instance of Middle English flatteren it occurs as a various reading for flakeren, which corresponds precisely to Middle Swedish flakra just cited.

Etymology: Onomatopoeic; compare flacker, flutter, flitter.