Word.ws English Dictionary

bants

bants noun: banter, particularly among men.

Noun

bants (uncountable)

  1. (UK, slang) Banter, particularly among men.
    • Top bants, says Twitter's master 'Target Smasher'2012 September 22, "Complete Ledge", “TV OD with Complete Ledge: Doomsday Preppers”, in The Guardian
    • In my office, bants come thick and fast, but when other departments blare out video clips, I can’t help thinking wistfully of a headphones-only zone.2013 September 1, Rebecca Armstrong, “Office noise: put up or shut up”, in The Independent

Forms of bants

alternative formbantz

Origin of bants

From banter + -s (“diminutive suffix”); first used in the early 21st century.

Questions about bants

What does bants mean?
Bants means banter, particularly among men.
What part of speech is bants?
Bants is a noun.

Words near bants in the dictionary

  1. Bantologists
  2. Banton
  3. Bantons
  4. Bantry
  5. Bantry Bay
  6. bants
  7. Bantu
  8. Bantu knot
  9. Bantu knots
  10. Bantufication
  11. Bantug

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bants (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-bants.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bants.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bants. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.