Is this a commonplace word? It's defined as "to laugh derisively (at); sneer or jeer (at)", but I can honestly say I'd never heard it before reading an article in the Wordcraft archives explaining "imparlibidinous":

A state of affairs we know all too well. When you ask the woman of your dreams out on a date and she fleers at you, simply explain to your friends that the two of you were imparlibidinous.

(A great word in itself, may I say!)

It's certainly not commonplace. I've heard it before, though rarely.

It was once the name of a bubble gum maker in the USA, but other than that, I'd not heard of it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleer

There's also FLIR, an acronym for Forward Looking Infrared Radar, and Flir Corporation makes it.http://www.flir.com/US/

I had never heard or seen it, other than the bubble gum.

The question reminded me of a TV interview with the manager of a local Macy's. The store was flooded last March and will reopen this week. The manager was asked about private vendors leasing space within the store and he said, "We leered a number of new vendors into our space."
Obviously he meant lured.

I do remember the bubble gum, but otherwise I've not heard of it. Good word!

A quick search for uses of the word reveals that most of them are 19th century or earlier, although there are several references to this use from 1928:

The ill-minded man who meanly thinks,
fleers at both foul and fair;
he does not know, as know he ought,
that he is not free from flaws.

It's from a translation of the Old Norse poem Hávamál by Lee M. Hollander. The verse is written in a highly alliterative style, which may help to account for the unusual choice of word.

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
"We leered a number of new vendors into our space."
Obviously he meant lured.

Maybe he used to work for Victoria's Secret.