Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A swift, witty reply.
- noun Conversation marked by the exchange of witty retorts.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make ready and witty replies.
- noun A ready, pertinent, and witty reply.
- noun Such replies in general or collectively; the kind of wit involved in making sharp and ready retorts.
- noun Synonyms Repartee, Retort. A repartee is a witty and good-humored answer to a remark of similar character, and is meant to surpass the latter in wittiness. A retort is a keen, prompt answer. A repartee may be called a retort where the wit is keen. Retort, however, is quite as commonly used for a serious turning back of censure, derision, or the like, in a short and sharp expression.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A smart, ready, and witty reply.
- intransitive verb rare To make smart and witty replies.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
swift ,witty reply, especially the one that is amusing. - noun A conversation marked by a series of witty retorts.
- verb To reply with a repartee
- verb To have a repartee (conversation marked by repartees)
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun adroitness and cleverness in reply
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word repartee.
Examples
-
French people generally have always admired a command of words and wit, an elegance of expression and a sharpness of mind expressing itself in repartee, and even in France Paris is particularly famous for it.
-
A young Irish newsboy, with a gift for quips and repartee, is named Oscar Wilde.
"The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack," steampunk by Mark Hodder Michael Dirda 2010
-
"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the crowd of 2,600 Wednesday.
December 2005 2005
-
“I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am,” Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.
-
“I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am,” Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.
-
No ladies can rival him in repartee, much less compete with him in poetry, so they were all afraid of him, but [this evening] he did not give a cup to any particular lady to make her compose poems.
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan b. 974? Murasaki Shikibu Izumi Shikibu 1920
-
And he was gifted with that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in every encounter, -- a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is in truth the readiness which comes from continual practice.
The Duke's Children Anthony Trollope 1848
-
Let me reproduce the brilliant repartee: is all of Oklahoma a bit slow? (
-
I’m rather fond of old-fashioned invective in repartee: but I don’t accuse folks of lying, unless I can prove it.
Matthew Yglesias » Strange Tales of Congressional Procedure 2010
-
Sadly, some prog Think Pessimism participants can’t remember their own talking-points if they engage in repartee with the opposition.
jmjarmstrong commented on the word repartee
JM is enjoying the book on witty repartee ‘Of Human Badinage’.
August 26, 2011