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badinage

[bad-n-ahzh, bad-n-ij]
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noun
  1. light, playful banter or raillery.
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verb (used with object), bad·i·naged, bad·i·nag·ing.
  1. to banter with or tease (someone) playfully.
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Origin of badinage

1650–60; < French, equivalent to badin(er) to joke, trifle (verbal derivative of badin joker, banterer < Old Provençal: fool; bad(ar) to gape (< Vulgar Latin batāre; cf. bay2) + -in < Latin -īnus -ine1) + -age -age
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for badinage

Historical Examples

  • It passes from badinage into personalities and recriminations.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

    Various

  • As a smile dimpled its way into her cheeks, he tired of the badinage.

  • And she had ignored it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth.

    Garrison's Finish

    W. B. M. Ferguson

  • But I had no mind for badinage, and I turned my face from him sullenly.

    A Daughter of Raasay

    William MacLeod Raine

  • "Killing them off" was a matter of badinage with the courtiers.

British Dictionary definitions for badinage

badinage

noun
  1. playful or frivolous repartee or banter
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Word Origin

C17: from French, from badiner to jest, banter, from Old Provençal badar to gape
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for badinage

n.

"light railery," 1650s, from French badinage "playfulness, jesting," from badiner (v.) "to jest, joke," from badin "silly, jesting," from Old Provençal badar "to yawn, gape," from Late Latin badare "to gape," from *bat-, the root of abash.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper