quip
/kwɪp/
quip noun: a smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.
Noun
quip (plural quips)
- A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.
- Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.1645, John Milton, L'Allegro
- He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
Verb
quip (third-person singular simple present quips, present participle quipping, simple past and past participle quipped)
- To make a quip.
- 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.2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992)”, in AV Club
- 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...2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 26
- Synonyms:
- scintillate
- To taunt; to mock with quips.
- the more he laughs, and does her closely quip1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- He did not really mind being quipped; the city gentlemen made him used to that sort of thing.1957, H. E. Bates, Death of a Huntsman
quip meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
quip in Tamil
- சிலேடைப் பேச்சு, நயத்திறச் சொல்
quip in Urdu
- smart, sarcastic turn or jest
- طعنہ taana
quip in Bengali
- সরস উক্তি, চটজলদি বিদ্রূপ
quip in Malayalam
- witticism, joke, witty remark
- നർമ്മോക്തി, ചുട്ട പ്രത്യുത്തരം, ചുട്ടമറുപടി, തമാശ, ചാടുവാക്യം, പരിഹാസപരാമർശം
- pun, joke, jest
- നേരമ്പോക്കുപ്രയോഗിക്കുക, തമാശ പറയുക, നർമ്മം പറയുക, കളി പറയുക, രണ്ടർത്ഥം വച്ചു പറയുക, ശ്ലേഷംവച്ചു പറയുക
More languagesFewer languages
- quip in Kannada
- ಚುಚ್ಚುನುಡಿ, ಹೊರಳುನುಡಿ, ವ್ಯಂಗ್ಯನುಡಿ ಆಡು, ಚುಚ್ಚುನುಡಿ ಆಡು
- quip in Arabic
- طعني
Examples of quip in a sentence
- 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.”1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
- 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.2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:
- "It's our version of Formula 1 telemetry," quips Hinze.2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 26:
Synonyms of quip
Forms of quip
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | quips |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | quips |
| present participle | quipping |
| past participle | quipped |
| past | quipped |
Origin of quip
From a shortening of earlier quippy, perhaps from Latin quippe (“indeed”), ultimately quid (“what”).
Words formed from quip
Words that rhyme with quip
39 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about quip
- What does quip mean?
- Quip means a smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.
- What is quip in Tamil?
- Quip in Tamil is சிலேடைப் பேச்சு, நயத்திறச் சொல். See Quip meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use quip in a sentence?
- 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.”
- What part of speech is quip?
- Quip can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce quip?
- Quip is pronounced /kwɪp/.
- What is the plural of quip?
- The plural of quip is quips.
Words near quip in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quip (page history and authors); quip (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quip (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quip (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); quip (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-quip.wav.
Cite this entry: “quip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.