raillery
Americannoun
-
good-humored ridicule; banter.
- Synonyms:
- pleasantry, chaff, badinage
-
a bantering remark.
noun
-
light-hearted satire or ridicule; banter
-
an example of this, esp a bantering remark
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of raillery
1645–55; < French raillerie, equivalent to Middle French raill ( er ) to rail 2 + -erie -ery
Explanation
Use the noun raillery to describe a kind of joking or gentle teasing. There will probably be a bit of raillery between elementary school students on a field trip bus, for example. If you engage in raillery, you make fun of someone — but lightheartedly, not in a way that would cause offense. The raillery between good friends or siblings might include laughter and teasing, or a joking banter back and forth. To rail is to complain, although its Middle French root, railler, means "to tease or joke," possibly from the Old Provençal word ralhar, "to scoff or to joke."
Vocabulary lists containing raillery
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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.
The first Shakespearean phrase I underlined during this period was “skirmish of wit,” about the raillery between Beatrice and Benedick, which inspired a lifelong expectation that romance must include snark.
From Washington Post • Sep. 8, 2021
Some of the raillery, while funny, feels like overkill.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 13, 2017
Advertisement Advertisement Often, though, their teasing doesn’t feel different from the family raillery of many a sitcom.
From New York Times • Aug. 9, 2015
Old pals, they knew each other’s foibles and weaknesses all too well and exploited them in an ongoing raillery of inside jokes, ragging, and general good-natured BS.
From Salon • Sep. 8, 2013
I saw their eyes bespeaking confusion at this raillery, sorrow to hear our liberator mocked thus, and anxiety at what His Lordship’s uncertainty might mean.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
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.
