quip

plural quips

1. A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.

   Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.

   1645, John Milton, L'Allegro

   3 more examples

   He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.

   1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

   He wrote it down, remembering a quip of Pym's, paraphrased from Clemenceau: "Military intelligence has as much to do with intelligence as military music has to do with music.”

   1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

   Nobody could ever be bothered to imagine the Sand Snakes beyond personalized weaponry and fake-aggressive quips, none of which were very convincing, and now they don’t even register as dead weight.

   2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2017

   Synonyms: riff. See also Thesaurus:joke

present singular third person quips · participle present quipping · participle past quipped · past quipped

1. intransitiveTo make a quip.

   In an eerily prescient bit, Kent Brockman laughingly quips that if seventy degree weather in the winter is the Gashouse Effect in action, he doesn’t mind one bit.

   2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 26 Oct 2012

   1 more example

   Now, faults can be diagnosed remotely and (in many cases) fixed before the train even reaches the depot. "It's our version of Formula 1 telemetry," quips Hinze. "It is similar for us to how a pit crew in Formula 1 can understand an issue as the car is coming into the pits - because it has that data to hand already. You know what's wrong before it arrives."

   2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 26

   Synonyms: scintillate

2. transitiveTo taunt; to mock with quips.

   the more he laughs, and does her closely quip

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   He did not really mind being quipped; the city gentlemen made him used to that sort of thing.

   1957, H. E. Bates, Death of a Huntsman