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flehmen

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flehmen¹

  • /ˈfleɪmən/

Sounds like flamen · Rhymes with -eɪmən

Where it comes from

From German flehmen, from Upper Saxon German flemmen (“to look spiteful”).

verb flehmens · flehmening · flehmened · flehm · flehman

  1. alternative Alternative form of flehm One can observe mucus dripping from the nostrils of stallions after they flehmen.

noun flehmens · flehm · flehman · Flehmen · Flehman

  1. countable, especially, uncountable, in the compound "flehmen response" Flaring of the lip in mammals, associated with intensive smelling; flehming. During the preliminary phase of courtship between captive animals, Matthew Gaughwin observed flehmen on a number of occasions when the male sniffed intensely at areas of ground where the female had previously urinated and once when the male had sniffed the female's cloacal region.

Flehmen²

Where it comes from

Capitalized apparently due to the mistaken belief that the word (used in compounds like flehmen response) was an eponym.

noun

  1. no plural, nonstandard Nonstandard form of flehmen

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Cite this
MLA

"flehmen." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/flehmen. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

flehmen. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/flehmen

Chicago

"flehmen." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/flehmen.

BibTeX
@misc{flehmen_2026,
  title = {flehmen},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/flehmen},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}