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:
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
But, as a stand-up comic, I’ve evolved from a one-liner to a comedian that tells stories, and it’s some really dark stuff but it’s all funny.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2025
“Where was Pat?” became a one-liner in Ronald Reagan’s winning campaign against him the next year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2025
She added: "He was always the first to help people in need. Brimming with empathy and living for the present, he would always have a funny one-liner up his sleeve making everyone around him laugh."
From BBC ● May 28, 2024
Freckles laughs about my Holocaust one-liner, and it doesn’t even sound like a condescending adult laugh.
From "Better Nate Than Ever" by Tim Federle
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
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
But something that has people talking almost as much as the return of Miranda Priestly's abrupt one-liners is the film's female-led soundtrack.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
The “Chuck Norris facts” phenomenon — a stream of absurd one-liners casting him as an invincible force of nature — helped turn the actor into a meme sensation before memes were a business.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 20, 2026
The banter they’d developed, full of his exasperation and her one-liners, was entertaining to anyone who overheard it.
From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers
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.
