Moving house-Flitting

I was brought up in Derbyshire, many moons ago, and when people were leaving the area they were flitting. Nowadays I wouldn’t use the term.

In Northumberland we used to say Friday flit short sit ,
when someone moved house on a Friday

As you can see by my pseudonym I was from the north west and people used the word flitting when and where I grew up.

Thanks for all the posts and explanations. I think 'flitting" is a great word-one word instead of 2-moving house. Trouble is of course if I start using it now no-one will understand.
So here's another one. Growing up we called off-licence shops Beer Offs. Took me ages to get used to saying off-licence.

We always used the term ‘flitting’ when I was young. I live in N Ireland. I haven’t heard it in years though!

The term is used in Northern Ireland as well. I didn’t even realise it was becoming less commonly used.

I grew up in south west Scotland, and yes, we used flitting when someone moved house. The phrase moonlight flit was also used, and meant, as others have said, someone running away and hiding - usually from debts, but I suppose it could also have meant in the way grannyactivist explained it. I'd not really thought about it that way to be honest.

When mum and I were ready to move from the first home we had in England to the next one, and I told friend we were flitting, I got the oddest of looks - not for the first time though. Many words and phrases I used met with bemusement from my English friends

Ah come fae the posh end o Sunny Govan ? and we wid never have done a moonlight.

Still hear the word flitting used by proud Weegies but I doubt the younger generation could tell you what it refers to. Reminder - must ask my offspring if they know the word.

We used flitting in London, but my mum was brought up in Sweden and Yorkshire so maybe that's why.

We do a flit here in the south west, but it’s generally to get away from something - and it’s usually a noun as in “he’s done a flit”.

Certainly I remember this word in terms of a "moonlight flit", (same definition as LuckyFour) when I was growing up in the Midlands.

Definitely remember this word from our earlier time in Lancashire, but don't hear it in Devon. A moonlight flit was leaving your house quickly and without paying I think.

I was brought up in the North West, with two Cumbrian grandmothers (coincidentally.) Flitting was something my family did rather frequently, following Father's work. We, happily, never had to do a 'Moonlight Flit' which was others agree, is beating the bailiffs and the landlord!

My Aberdonian family always used "flitting" for any house move, but since then I've only heard of people throughout England "doing a moonlight flit" - happens a lot on my rather poverty-stricken Rochdale estate!

Southerners have their one meaning if the word, doesn't mean its wrong, the northern meaning could be the wrong one!

We did a 'moonlight flit' when I was seven and my mum wanted to get away where my dad couldn't find her. It was a 'three way' council house exchange in Manchester.

Usually when a family did a flit it was either because they'd 'bettered themselves' i.e. bought a house, or because they were a step ahead of the bailiffs.

I agree. Here in the Scottish Borders moving house is flitting but a moonlight flit is running away.
I had neighbours who did that. They stripped the house, even took the carpets and light bulbs and creditors called on us looking for them, the neighbours not the bulbs..

Growing up in the North of England, I remember adults talking of flitting ( and yes, a moonlight flit was when you left overnight with rent owing.)
I never heard my own generation use the word though.

"Flit/flitting" probably comes from Old Norse. In Swedish 'flytta' means to move. It can mean move house but it can also mean 'move' in the sense move a thing/person to another location: "Flytta stolen" (= Move the chair), "Flytta på dig" (=Move/shift your position).

I also grew up[ in S.Yorkshire, we used the word flitting as well.

I'm in the south but my parents were from the north/Scotland and they used the term flitting. I think southerners use the term moonlight flit for escaping debt.

Yes "flitting" was the term used for moving house in the West Riding of Yorkshire when I was a lass. Doing a moonlight flit seems to be a term common to all parts of the country and means the same - i.e running away to avoid debts.

I grew up in the north. A moonlight flit was moving owing money. Just moving house was flitting.

I once had neighbours who did a moonlight flit - they were in debt - and we heard some commotion outside (things being moved, doors being slammed, an engine running), at 3am., and they had loaded all their stuff onto a lorry and cleared off.

As a southerner, moving house was moving house, flitting wasn't much used, but when used meant a sudden flight, as in a moonlight flightbut could be for other reasons.