Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Light, playful banter.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Light playful banter or raillery.
  • noun Synonyms Raillery, banter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Playful raillery; banter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Playful raillery; banter.
  • verb To engage in badinage or playful banter.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun frivolous banter

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from badin, joker, from Provençal badar, to gape, from Latin *batāre.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French badinage, from the verb badiner ("to jest, joke").

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Examples

  • In describing a scene in which sexist badinage is exchanged at an account meeting, McLean correctly points out that “the series is critical of this limited view and is not afraid to spell [its criticism] out.”

    Mad About Mad Men 2009

  • In describing a scene in which sexist badinage is exchanged at an account meeting, McLean correctly points out that “the series is critical of this limited view and is not afraid to spell [its criticism] out.”

    Mad About Mad Men 2009

  • In describing a scene in which sexist badinage is exchanged at an account meeting, McLean correctly points out that “the series is critical of this limited view and is not afraid to spell [its criticism] out.”

    Mad About Mad Men 2009

  • I stipulate that this sounded idiotic, but when you are facing a large and menacing Viking, badinage is the first casualty.

    One of Our Whales Is Missing 2005

  • I stipulate that this sounded idiotic, but when you are facing a large and menacing Viking, badinage is the first casualty.

    One of Our Whales Is Missing 2005

  • Similarly, with "badinage" - the phonetic meaning comes out as "bad in age" - memory, sex, teeth.

    Archive 2008-04-01 2008

  • Similarly, with "badinage" - the phonetic meaning comes out as "bad in age" - memory, sex, teeth.

    Archive 2008-04-01 2008

  • But instead of joining what Charmian termed the badinage, the psychoanalysts remained aloof.

    Fleur De Leigh’s Life of Crime Diane Leslie 1999

  • The badinage is the young man's defect in art; the brag is his defect in nature.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, April 30, 1892 Various

  • The word is "badinage" and, as defined on AWAD, means "Light, playful remarks; banter."

    Naughty and Nice barbylon 2006

Comments

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  • I love how this word sounds.

    July 13, 2008

  • "The badinage was inconsequential, reduced to who knew whom and wasn't the weather glorious in St. Tropez, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Hong Kong?"

    - Robert Ludlum, 'The Matarese Countdown'.

    June 30, 2009

  • Is badinage ever consequential?

    June 30, 2009

  • Only unintentionally, I think. Poor writing by Ludlum there.

    July 1, 2009

  • Is persiflage ever not airy?

    July 1, 2009

  • "Strahs and the actors are shitting us all the time with this clipped badinage..." TONY theater review

    March 20, 2010

  • Railroad telegraphers' shorthand for Baggage referred to in your letter of". --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906.

    January 20, 2013

  • No single word is sufficiently large

    To capture the spirit of persiflage.

    That genial quality

    Of taunting frivolity

    At play is a partner to badinage.

    July 18, 2014