How to use repartee in a sentence

13 example sentences · noun, verb

Repartee means a swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing. Example: “A slight smile broke on his lips. ¶ "You are always prepared to sacrifice your principles for a repartee," he answered.”

Examples of repartee by meaning

nounA swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.

A slight smile broke on his lips. ¶ "You are always prepared to sacrifice your principles for a repartee," he answered.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 41, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

nounA 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...

nounA skill in replying swiftly and wittily.

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...

verbTo 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

More sentences with repartee

Eskista is the dance of the Amharas, enhancing amorous repartee and expressing collective jubilation.2002 August 1, Frank Tenaille, Music is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music, →ISBN, page 168. From the entry Ethiopian
We all dissolved in laughter at the good-natured repartee.2002, Chellie Campbell, The Wealthy Spirit, Sourcebooks, →ISBN, →OL, page 162. From the entry zing
From the cleverest repartee to the worst groaner, people use and respond to puns, but sometimes find them hard to define.1993, Peggy O'Brien, Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page…. From the entry groaner
The "interlocutor" greeted the audience and engaged in comical repartee with the "end men," named Tambo and Bones.1991, Maureen Costonis, “Martha Graham's American Document: A Minstrel Show in Modern Dance Dress”, in American Music, volume 9, number 3…. From the entry interlocutor
Repartee between a mean mom and a bunch of girls getting ready to go out for a night of hellraising.1982 April 24, “Women of Iron”, in Gay Community News, page 10. From the entry hellraising
The youngsters become “wordmasters” as they engage in the verbal repartee of “playing the dozens,” “capping” or “toasting,” and the hard-hitting social commentary of rap.1993, Judith H. Shulman, Amalia Mesa-Bains, editors, Diversity in the Classroom: A Casebook for Teachers and Teacher Educators, Research…. From the entry wordmaster
He thought out his brisk repartees purely for his own satisfaction and at leisure, and would have blushed to answer his belittlers in the open.1913, Everard Meynell, chapter 7, in The Life of Francis Thompson, London: Burns & Oates, page 142. From the entry belittler
Secured with ballast of repartee, we drifted past murky, shallow waters of literary knawvshawl and found ourselves navigating a course I can't recall we ever traversed.1999, “The Leper and Civil Disobedience”, in Fortnight, numbers 376-390. From the entry knawvshawl
I kept my speedometer at forty or under; Wolfe had told Anderson this would be unostentatious, and besides, I wasn't in the mood for repartee with a motor cop.1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 274. From the entry motor cop

Meaning of repartee

noun A swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.
noun A conversation marked by a series of witty retorts.
noun A skill in replying swiftly and wittily.

Full definition of repartee

Questions about repartee in a sentence

How do you use repartee in a sentence?: Repartee is used as a noun and verb. For example: “A slight smile broke on his lips. ¶ "You are always prepared to sacrifice your principles for a repartee," he answered.”
What is a short sentence with repartee?: “We all dissolved in laughter at the good-natured repartee.”
What does repartee mean?: Repartee means a swift, witty reply, especially one that is amusing.

Adapted from Wiktionary: repartee (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use repartee in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/repartee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.