BADINAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does badinage mean? 

• BADINAGE (noun)
  The noun BADINAGE has 1 sense:

1. frivolous banter

  Familiarity information: BADINAGE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BADINAGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Frivolous banter

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("badinage" is a kind of...):

backchat; banter; give-and-take; raillery (light teasing repartee)

 Context examples 

Then, suddenly altering his tone, Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the badinage, bristling with slang and sharpness, that was always the preliminary to getting acquainted in these swift-moving affairs.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I couldn't cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said:—Now, Mr. Bilder, we'll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you've told me what you think will happen.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester un vrai menteur, and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his contes de fee, and that du reste, il n'y avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait: she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Another paper, in deadly seriousness, reproving Helen Della Delmar for her parody, said: But unquestionably Miss Delmar wrote it in a moment of badinage and not quite with the respect that one great poet should show to another and perhaps to the greatest.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was his old spirit of humor and badinage that had made him a favorite in his own class, but which he had hitherto been unable to use in her presence through lack of words and training.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)