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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
Marcus Thompson Ii, New York Times, 11 Mar. 2026
Colbert did read out several jokes that have been cut during his time on the show, crediting his writing staff for their quips.
—Emily Zemler, Rolling Stone, 9 Mar. 2026
Patrick Ryan, USA Today, 13 Mar. 2026
Elsewhere, firebrand pro-Kremlin TV host Olga Skabeyeva quipped Tuesday about people in the neighboring NATO nation of Estonia having to walk because public transport was already running out of fuel.
—Yuliya Talmazan, NBC news, 10 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for quip
Cite this Entry
“Quip.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quip. Accessed 15 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
quip
1 of 2 nounquip
2 of 2 verb
