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To tweak a well-known line from Hamlet, brevity is the soul of quip. While jokes are often brief stories with setups followed by surprising and funny endings (chickens crossing roads, elephant footprints in the butter, etc.) quips are even briefer, and not so planned or scripted. They are more likely to arise naturally in conversation when someone is especially quick-witted, firing off zingers, retorts, or—if you want to get extra fancy about it—bon mots. Brevity also plays a role in quip's etymology: quip is a shortening of quippy, a now-obsolete noun of the same meaning. Quippy's origins are uncertain, but they may lie in the Latin word quippe, meaning "indeed" or "to be sure," which was often used ironically. Quip entered English as a noun in the 1500s, but was verbified within decades; the verb quip means "to make quips" or "to jest or jibe at."
Examples of quip in a Sentence
Dominic Patten, Deadline, 3 Sep. 2025
But most crucially, travel is a package that can be wrapped in the right curation of Instagram photos and tied up with a neat little Tony quip in the caption in lieu of a ribbon.
—Tres Dean, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2025
David Caraccio, Sacbee.com, 29 Aug. 2025
José Andrés quips, getting a big laugh from Meghan.
—Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 26 Aug. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Quip.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quip. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
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quip
1 of 2 nounquip
2 of 2 verb
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