Word of the Day

Saturday March 27, 2010

• Today's Word |
• Yesterday's Word |
• Previous Words |
• Subscribe Now

badinage [bad-n-AHZH]

noun

1. Playful, frivolous talk; banter.

• He obliges by creating an alter ego, "Franois Dillinger," an insouciant white-pantsed rebel with the kind of mustache that suggests a fondness for Nestle's Quik rather than successful completion of puberty. But Franois also has an arrogant way with a cigarette and a facility for naughty badinage.
  Kyle Smith, "REBEL WITH A CAUSE - THIS TEEN IS ON A SERIOUS MISSION", New York Post , Jan 8, 2010
• I had never watched an entire episode of "NCIS" during the half-dozen years it had aired in prime time. I caught a few minutes of it here and there, quickly tiring of the badgering badinage between DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo), rival NCIS agents.
  Julia Keller, "Naval gazing: How 'NCIS' helped me learn to love again", Chicago Tribune, Apr 7, 2009
• "A little badinage does no harm," she said, "it keeps people from getting angry because they can't do any more business."
  Henry van Dyke (1852 - 1933) An American author, educator, and clergyman. The Unknown Quantity (1921)

Origin of the Word

Badinage , approximately 1650, derives from French badinage "playfulness, jesting," from badiner, "to jest, joke," from badin "silly, jesting."