Word.ws English Dictionary

repartee

UK/ˌɹɛpɑːˈtiː//ˌɹɛpɑɹˈteɪ/

repartee noun: a swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.

Noun

repartee (countable and uncountable, plural repartees)

  1. A swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.
    • Many persons must laugh when a great person or an acknowledged wit says a clever thing, such as a smart repartee, or a really good pun.1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 241
    • Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany[…]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    joke
  2. A conversation marked by a series of witty retorts.
    • Each meeting is free-flowing and the discussion less arch, less cut-and-thrust than the repartee at parties thrown in the book by the aristocratic `Guermantes family—although Proust teachs you to look for the unspoken in life as in literature.2026 July 25, Josh Spero, “Proust in the age of TikTok”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2
  3. A skill in replying swiftly and wittily.
    • The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again;[…]. Our table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand...1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
    • Another millstone around the NDP’s neck was the relative lack of seasoned parliamentarians in the government front bench who were skilled enough at repartee to take on the Tory veterans across the floor.1982 December 11, Frances Russell, “Economic performance buoys Pawley’s position”, in The Vancouver Sun (The Weekend Sun), Vancouver, BC, page A6

Verb

repartee (third-person singular simple present repartees, present participle reparteeing, simple past and past participle reparteed)

  1. (transitive) To reply with a repartee.
    • Aubrey speaks of him as 'incomparable at reparteeing, the bull that was bayted, his witt beinge most sparkling, when most set on and provoked.'1862, Various, The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4
  2. (transitive) To have a repartee (a conversation marked by witty retorts or replies).
    • To see them together, friendly, reparteeing, chummy, would turn your stomach--Barbara so exquisite and high-born, and the man, his eyes full of evil fires, sitting like a great toad on the model's chair.1913, Gouverneur Morris, The Penalty

repartee meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

repartee in Hindi

repartee
नोक-झोंक nok-jhõk

repartee in Urdu

برجستگی, بذلہ سنجی, تیز جوابی, ترکی بہ ترکی جواب

repartee in Bengali

দ্রুত ও বুদ্ধিমান কথোপকথন, জবাব

repartee in Malayalam

പ്രത്യുത്തരം, സരസ സംഭാഷണം, ചുട്ട മറുപടി
More languagesFewer languages
repartee in Kannada
ಚಲ್ಲ ಮಾರ‍್ನುಡಿ, ತಕ್ಕು ಮಾರ‍್ನುಡಿ, ಕಯ್ಮೆ ಮಾರ‍್ನುಡಿ, ಚತುರ ಪ್ರತ್ಯುಕ್ತಿ
repartee in Tagalog
patnig

Examples of repartee in a sentence

  • Eskista is the dance of the Amharas, enhancing amorous repartee and expressing collective jubilation.
  • We all dissolved in laughter at the good-natured repartee.
  • From the cleverest repartee to the worst groaner, people use and respond to puns, but sometimes find them hard to define.

All 13 example sentences with repartee

Synonyms of repartee

Forms of repartee

Noun
pluralrepartees
alternative formrepartée
Verb
third-person singular presentrepartees
present participlereparteeing
past participlereparteed
pastreparteed

Origin of repartee

From French repartie, a deverbal of repartir (“to retort”).

Questions about repartee

What does repartee mean?
Repartee means a swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.
What is repartee in Hindi?
Repartee in Hindi is नोक-झोंक (nok-jhõk). See Repartee meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is repartee?
Repartee can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce repartee?
Repartee is pronounced /ˌɹɛpɑɹˈteɪ/ (US).
What is the plural of repartee?
The plural of repartee is repartees.

Words near repartee in the dictionary

  1. repartake
  2. repartaken
  3. repartakes
  4. repartaking
  5. reparted
  6. repartee
  7. reparteed
  8. reparteeing
  9. repartees
  10. repartied
  11. reparties

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: repartee (page history and authors); नोक-झोंक (Hindi) (page history and authors); repartee (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); repartee (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); repartee (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); repartee (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)-Sapaa-repartee.wav.

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