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.
After a 10-year absence, Mr. Angell resumed his annual rhyming jeu d’esprit in 2008:
From Washington Post ● May 20, 2022
The story proper begins almost as a light-hearted jeu d’esprit.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2015
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
His photograph, although a jeu d’esprit, exudes a whiff of melancholy because like all photographs it’s a reminder, with that shadow, of something gone except in the picture and our recollections of it.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2010
This woman's hysterical imagination turned a mere jeu d'esprit of her old friend into a formidable weapon of attack against her new lover.
From The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the First by Carlo Gozzi
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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.
