jeu d'esprit
Americannoun
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jeux d'esprit
plural
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a witticism.
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a literary work showing keen wit or intelligence rather than profundity.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of jeu d'esprit
Literally, “play of spirit”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Still, there is one difference: Irregulars regard such playful ingenuity as merely an intellectual game, a literal jeu d’esprit.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2023
After a 10-year absence, Mr. Angell resumed his annual rhyming jeu d’esprit in 2008:
From Washington Post ● May 20, 2022
Ratmansky’s Violente keeps her arms closer to her chest, and deploys them more softly, so that the pointing becomes a sort of jeu d’esprit.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 8, 2015
There are echoes of “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall,” but the better analogues for this jeu d’esprit, written by Peter Glanz and Juan Iglesias and directed by Mr. Glanz, are Mr. Allen’s comic New Yorker essays.
From New York Times ● Aug. 21, 2011
Before this she had been a “little noisy,” singing snatches of a song, and trying to repeat the words of an ambiguous jeu d’esprit she had heard that evening for the first time.
From The Child Wife by Mayne Reid
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
