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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
Emma Bowman, NPR, 23 June 2025
Tammy Bruce made the quip during an appearance last month on the Israeli TV show i24 News.
—Chloe Mayer, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 June 2025
Tess Kenny, Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2025
The King just quipped with a veteran about his old age, and dropped a secret to living a long life.
—Lea Veloso, StyleCaster, 10 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for quip
Cite this Entry
“Quip.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quip. Accessed 13 Jul. 2025.
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quip
1 of 2 nounquip
2 of 2 verb
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