jeu d'esprit
Americannoun
plural
jeux d'esprit-
a witticism.
-
a literary work showing keen wit or intelligence rather than profundity.
noun
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
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 jeu d'esprit, flying about Westminster Hall, reached the Chancellor, who was very much amused with it, notwithstanding the allusion to his doubting propensity.
From Law and Laughter by Morton, George A. (George Alexander)
Definitions 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.
