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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
Paulina Dedaj, FOXNews.com, 11 June 2025
An early Super 70s fan, installed in the front row, queasily yearned for quips about the days of dirt bikes and cigarette machines, or even for those days themselves.
—Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker, 19 May 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 4 Jul. 2025.
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quip
1 of 2 nounquip
2 of 2 verb
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