quip

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English

Etymology

From a shortening of earlier quippy, perhaps from Latin quippe (“indeed”), ultimately quid (“what”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: kwĭp, IPA(key): /kwɪp/,
  • Rhymes: -ɪp
  • Audio (UK):(file)

Noun

quip (plural quips)

  1. A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.
    • 1645, John Milton, L'Allegro:
      Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.
    • 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC:
      He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.
    • 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
      He wrote it down, remembering a quip of Pym's, paraphrased from Clemenceau: "Military intelligence has as much to do with intelligence as military music has to do with music.”
    • 2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:
      Nobody could ever be bothered to imagine the Sand Snakes beyond personalized weaponry and fake-aggressive quips, none of which were very convincing, and now they don’t even register as dead weight.

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Verb

quip (third-person singular simple present quips, present participle quipping, simple past and past participle quipped)

  1. (intransitive) To make a quip.
    • 2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in AV Club‎:
      In an eerily prescient bit, Kent Brockman laughingly quips that if seventy degree weather in the winter is the Gashouse Effect in action, he doesn’t mind one bit.
    • 2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 26:
      Now, faults can be diagnosed remotely and (in many cases) fixed before the train even reaches the depot. "It's our version of Formula 1 telemetry," quips Hinze. "It is similar for us to how a pit crew in Formula 1 can understand an issue as the car is coming into the pits - because it has that data to hand already. You know what's wrong before it arrives."
  2. (transitive) To taunt; to treat with quips.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: ">…] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
      the more he laughs, and does her closely quip
    • 1957, H. E. Bates, Death of a Huntsman:
      He did not really mind being quipped; the city gentlemen made him used to that sort of thing.

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