peacocking
- 1Showy dress or attention-grabbing behavior used by a man in an effort to impress women.
Like a sports car revving its engine at a red light: all noise and shine meant to draw eyes.
Her date's relentless peacocking (flashy car, designer labels) came off as desperate rather than confident.
Among the regulars at the club, peacocking was the standard approach to catching a woman's eye.
Note
A term of art from the pickup community, built from peacock + -ing: the man fans out his plumage like the bird. There it names a deliberate tactic, dressing flashily so women notice, that guides say must be fully committed to. Emily Toth's Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia (1997) stretches it to showy self-display in legislatures, churches and above all academia. Either way it is uncountable: peacocking, never a peacocking.
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Origin
Formed from "peacock" combined with the suffix "-ing".