Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also flitty) a male homosexual; thus attrib.

1934		G. & S. Lorimer Stag Line 171: I’d feel like a flit [...] browsing around the Kiddies’ Korner.
1941		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 102: There was a young fellow named Oakum / Whose brags about fucking were hokum, / For he really preferred / To suck cocks and stir turd— / He was Queen of the Flits in Hoboken.
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 149: Sometimes it was hard to believe, the people he said were flits and lesbians.
1963		M. McCarthy Group 88: ‘Flits have always been attracted to me’—he had told her that last summer [Simes:DLSS].
1964		E. Lacey Pity Honest 30: ‘Could he have been on the flit side?’ ‘Doubt that,..not that I’m not an authority on queers’ [OED].
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 119: Flit An effeminate male. A homosexual [...] Flitty An effeminate male.
1969		J. Crumley One to Count Cadence (1987) 239: She came in [...] with a group of white waving hands and flitting voices.
1976		Tuohy & Murphy Plum Trees 85: homosexual [...] flit [Simes:DLSS].
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 51: I was sure that Miss Moltke would flunk me, the flit.
1984		Advocate (L.A.) 20 <ay 49/1: Back there, they would call me a ‘flit’, in that time and place the word for ‘fairy’ [Simes:DLSS].
1999		Gaymart.com Queer Sl. in the Gay 90s 🌐 Flit – Derogatory term for Homosexual. Term used in the ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 231: We saw flits flip through The Greek Way, Greg Goes Greek [...] and The Hungest Among Us.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 14: A flit flamed by and ogled my piece.

2. a foolish person.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS 119: Flit A person who always fools around.