0 present participle of court
1 to try to please someone because you want them to join you:
2 to try to get something, especially attention or support from other people:
She courts publicity by inviting journalists to extravagant parties.
3 to risk something unpleasant, especially by behaving stupidly or carelessly:
4 to have a romantic relationship with someone that you hope to marry:
Trying to plan in the face of such circumstances is, in their opinion, to be irrational, to be courting disappointment, or predetermined to fail.
For example, suppose a suitor is courting a woman whom he considers beautiful, noble, and uniquely gifted.
We have no standard methods of building, or hunting, or eating, or keeping ourselves clean, or courting, or looking after our young.
Infected males in shoals are consequently capable of courting females.
When first observed the insects were in the act of copulation, so no courting was seen.
The couple had been courting for eight years before they married in 1940 when she was pregnant.
As there would be no rank-order lists, there could be no sly wink-and-nod commitments between candidates and institutions courting one another.
Courting was the ' ' normal ' ' state from say, 16, onward.