March 24, 2003
The Word of the
The Word of the Day for March 23 is: repartee
• noun
1 *a : a quick and witty reply b : a succession or interchange of clever retorts : amusing and usually light sparring with words
2 : adroitness and cleverness in reply : skill in repartee
Example sentence:
Larry impressed the comedy club audience by maintaining his composure and acknowledging the heckler with only a brief, good-natured repartee.
Did you know?
One person often noted for her repartee was Dorothy Parker, writer and legendary member of the Algonquin Round Table. Upon hearing that Calvin Coolidge had died, she replied, "How can they tell?" The taciturn Coolidge obviously didn’t have a reputation for being the life of the party, but he himself came out with a particularly famous repartee on one occasion. When a dinner guest approached him and told him she had bet someone she could get him to say more than two words, he replied, "You lose." "Repartee," our word for such a quick, sharp reply (and for skill with such replies) comes from the French "repartie," of the same meaning. "Repartie" comes from the French verb "repartir," meaning "to retort."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
[Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day]Trackback
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