repartee

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repartee

  • /ˌɹɛpɑɹˈteɪ/ US
  • /ˌɹɛpɑːˈtiː/ UK

Where it comes from

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

noun repartees · repartée

  1. countable, uncountable A swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing. Many persons must laugh when a great person or an acknowledged wit says a clever thing, such as a smart repartee, or a really good pun.
  2. countable, uncountable A conversation marked by a series of witty retorts. Each meeting is free-flowing and the discussion less arch, less cut-and-thrust than the repartee at parties thrown in the book by the aristocratic `Guermantes family—although Proust teachs you to look for the unspoken in life as in literature.
  3. countable, uncountable A skill in replying swiftly and wittily. 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

verb repartees · reparteeing · reparteed · repartée

  1. transitive To reply with a repartee. 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. transitive To have a repartee (a conversation marked by witty retorts or replies). 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.

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