one-liner
Americannoun
-
one-liners
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of one-liner
1965–70, one line + -er 1
Explanation
A one-liner is a joke or clever remark expressed in a single sentence, with a brief setup and a clever twist at the end. As Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist everything, except temptation." The beauty of a one-liner lies in its efficiency. There's no long buildup; it gets straight to the (funny) point. One-liners often rely on wordplay or surprise endings that catch listeners off guard. A popular one-liner is "I'm on a seafood diet — I see food, and I eat it!" Some standup comedians rely heavily on one-liners in their performances, keeping the audience rolling in the aisles! These "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" jokes show that sometimes brevity truly is the soul of wit.
Vocabulary lists containing one-liner
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.
See Examples For:
“It’s like climbing a mountain,” he says, flaunting his well-honed ability to turn even the toughest-learned lesson into a playful one-liner: “Everybody’s waving at you, ‘Go back, go back.’
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2025
The Thanksgiving episodes are shocking and absurd, packed with scathing one-liner digs and soapy melodrama; feasts so good that you can’t help but come back for more.
From Salon ● May 17, 2025
When Craig spots Austin cracking a corny one-liner on the nightly news, he smiles like Santa Claus is real.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
“Eventually Revolut froze the account. They told me there was nothing they could do. It felt like a one-liner to say sorry.”
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2024
Something catches me off guard—a TV show, a funny one-liner from my dad, a comment in class—and I laugh like nothing ever happened.
From "All The Bright Places" by Jennifer Niven
In the comedy world, Jeselnik has become legendary for his razor-edged one-liners, each joke ending with a dark reversal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
Its closest resemblance is to Wain’s 2014 romantic comedy parody, “They Came Together,” which, despite having no shortage of memorable one-liners, functions best as a whole.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026
"This is one of those few shows that I'm involved in where I can go 'you need to come. It's really good', because the zinging one-liners are all his."
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
Blunt stole the show with laugh-out-loud one-liners, often delivered dripping with contempt to Hathaway’s bumbling newbie second assistant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
In October, he wrote a funny letter, full of puns and one-liners, to Barbara, at college in Minnesota.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
