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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
Jessica Bennett, VIBE.com, 4 Apr. 2025
Gabe also enjoys giving his dad shout-outs whenever an opportunity comes up, including on birthdays and holidays — sometimes with a quip thrown in.
—Emy Lacroix, People.com, 14 Mar. 2025
Alicia Wallace, CNN Money, 9 Apr. 2025
At a photo booth, guests grabbed signs with all sorts of corny, apropos quips for a retirement party: Having fun is my new job.
—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 3 Apr. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Quip.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quip. Accessed 14 Apr. 2025.
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quip
1 of 2 nounquip
2 of 2 verb
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