repartee

See also: repartée

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From French repartie, deverbal of repartir (to retort).

Pronunciation

Noun

repartee (countable and uncountable, plural repartees)

  1. A swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:joke
  2. A conversation marked by a series of witty retorts.
  3. Skill in replying swiftly and wittily.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; []. Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition.
    • 1982 December 11, Frances Russell, “Economic performance buoys Pawley’s position”, in The Vancouver Sun (The Weekend Sun), Vancouver, BC, page A6:
      Another millstone around the NDP’s neck was the relative lack of seasoned parliamentarians in the government front bench who were skilled enough at repartee to take on the Tory veterans across the floor.

Translations

Verb

repartee (third-person singular simple present repartees, present participle reparteeing, simple past and past participle reparteed)

  1. To reply with a repartee.
    • 1862, Various, The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4:
      Aubrey speaks of him as 'incomparable at reparteeing, the bull that was bayted, his witt beinge most sparkling, when most set on and provoked.'
  2. To have a repartee (conversation marked by repartees).
    • 1913, Gouverneur Morris, The Penalty:
      To see them together, friendly, reparteeing, chummy, would turn your stomach--Barbara so exquisite and high-born, and the man, his eyes full of evil fires, sitting like a great toad on the model's chair.

Translations

Further reading

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