flit

Etymology 1

From Middle English flitten, flytten, from Old Norse flytja (“to move”), from Proto-Germanic *flutjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow; run”). Cognate Icelandic flytja, Swedish flytta, Danish flytte, Norwegian flytte, Faroese flyta. Compare also Saterland Frisian flitskje (“to rush; run quickly”).

noun

1. A fluttering or darting movement.
2. (physics) A particular, unexpected, short lived change of state.
   My computer just had a flit.
3. (dated, slang) A homosexual.

verb

1. To move about rapidly and nimbly.
   A shadow flits before me, / Not thou, but like to thee; […] 1855, Tennyson, Maud
2. To move quickly from one location to another.
   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
3. (physics) To unpredictably change state for short periods of time.
   My blender flits because the power cord is damaged.
4. (UK, dialect) To move house (sometimes a sudden move to avoid debts).
   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
5. To move a tethered animal to a new, grazing location.
6. To be unstable; to be easily or often moved.
   the free soul to flitting air resign'd

adj

1. (poetic, obsolete) Fast, nimble.

Etymology 2

Short for flow control unit or flow control digit.

noun

1. (networking) A flow control unit or flow control digit.
   header flit