Etymology

persiflage

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Today it means: Good-natured banter; raillery. Full definition →

French persiflage ← Latin sībilō
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The story

  1. Latin · derived fromsībilō“whistle”
  2. French · borrowed frompersiflage
  3. English todaypersiflage

From French persiflage, from persifler (“to quiz, tease, mock”), from per- + siffler (“to whistle”), from Latin sībilō (“whistle”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.