persiflate

present singular third person persiflates · participle present persiflating · participle past persiflated · past persiflated · alternative persifflate

1. intransitiveraretransitiveTo engage in persiflage; to banter.

   In later school stories you get Marriott and Jimmy Silver putting their feet up and simply persiflating.

   1961, Richard Usborne, Wodehouse at Work to the End, London: Barrie & Jenkins, published 1976, →ISBN, page 81

   2 more examples

   We talked and persifflated all the way to London; and the idea of her will help me to a good chapter, in which I will make Pendennis and Blanche play at being in love, such a wicked false humbugging love, as two blase London People might act, and half deceive themselves that they were in earnest.

   1850 August 21, William Makepeace Thackeray, edited by Gordon N[orton] Ray, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, volume IV, Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, published 1946, page 425

   We shall later see, that he used the Bible (Samson series) for his fight against his Philistine in-laws, and, according to Coppier, to persiflate Rabbi Saul Levi Mortiera, who had cursed Spinoza out of the temple.

   1962, Leo Balet, Rembrandt and Spinoza, New York, N.Y.: Philosophical Library, page 174