raillery

American  

[rey-luh-ree] / ˈreɪ lə ri /

noun

railleries plural

1. good-humored ridicule; banter.

   Synonyms:

   pleasantry, chaff, badinage

2. a bantering remark.

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raillery British  

/ ˈreɪlərɪ /

noun

1. light-hearted satire or ridicule; banter

2. an example of this, esp a bantering remark

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• railleries
  plural

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."

Example Sentences

Raillery and rebuke she did not mind; only the shadow, which fell coldly on her heart too.

From Dangerous Ages by Macaulay, Rose, Dame

For what wonder is it if we, who have more Liberty, have less Dexterity in that egregious way of Raillery and Ridicule?”

From A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) by Collins, Anthony

Raillery is no longer agreeable than while the whole Company is pleased with it.

From A Century of English Essays An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time by Rhys, Ernest

Raillery is a difficult thing to manage well, and very apt both to give pain to him who is the object of it, and to reflect discredit on him who attempts it.

From Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew by Berens, Edward

The result was a curious obscuration of some of Arnold's most characteristic traits—such, for example, as his over-flowing gaiety, and his love of what our fathers called Raillery.

From Matthew Arnold by Russell, George William Erskine