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Badinage

noun
1.
Frivolous banter.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Badinage" Quotes from Famous Books



... extravagant badinage. It seems Calvus Licinius had sent Catullus a collection of miserable poems, and that, too, on commencement of the Saturnalia, dedicated to joy, and freedom from care and annoyance. Our author writes to complain of the malicious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... In such badinage, the leisurely stop passed while the boys finished their first meal in the wilderness, topping it off with the luscious red raspberries that were just in ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... Mrs. Rucker in a clean print dress and with glossy and uncompromisingly smoothed hair stood at the newly whitewashed front gate. "Send him on home, Rose Mary, or grass'll grow in his tracks and yours, too, if he can hold you long enough," she added by way of badinage. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... fact," said Fillmore loftily, his great soul ill-attuned to this badinage, "what I was really thinking about at the moment was something ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... principal entrance, and after a little badinage from the officer on guard as to the lateness of the hour at which he returned, made his way ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... designate his peculiar style, le marivaudage, a term which has had in the past rather more of discredit than of esteem in its general acceptation. Sainte-Beuve thus defines it: "Qui dit marivaudage, dit plus ou moins badinage a froid, espieglerie compassee et prolongee, petillement redouble et pretentieux, enfin une sorte de pedantisme semillant et joli; mais l'homme, considere dans l'ensemble, vaut mieux que la definition a laquelle il a fourni occasion et ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... Jones, and tell 'em how I feel; My compliments to Cockrill, Munford, Switzler, Hasbrook, Vest, Bill Nelson, J. West Goodwin, Jedge Broadhead and the rest; Bid them be steadfast in the faith and pay no heed at all To Joe McCullagh's badinage or Chauncy Filley's gall; And urge them to retaliate for what I'm suffering here By cinching all the alien class ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... If this was badinage Miss Garland had the best of it, for Rowland almost fell a-musing silently over the question whether there was a possibility of irony in that transparent gaze. Before he withdrew, Mrs. Hudson made him tell her again that Roderick's ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... in a tone of badinage, for he was bent on screwing up Washington's spirits, but he made his promise in good faith, nevertheless, and Washington looked ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... tail. "Confound you, Donald; I used to eat these fat, juicy little lamb's tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely badinage. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle: the vista of fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling each,—cooking, eating, gambling, or amusing themselves with idle badinage; shrivelled squaws, hideous with threescore years of hardship; grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois war-clubs; young aspirants, whose honors were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and wampum; restless children pellmell with restless dogs. Now a tongue of resinous ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... anything he could have said, that he said nothing, and looked on with his mouth set in its queer smile, while the girl listened with the gravity of a daughter who sees that her mother is losing her head. Mrs. Pasmer buzzed on in her badinage with the young man, and allowed him to go for a cup of coffee before she rose from her chair, and shook out her skirts with an air of pleasant expectation of whatever should ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... their services. The man behind the bar, however, who had evidently been forewarned, intervened with a few sharp words, and, lifting the flap of the counter, ushered Hunterleys into a little room beyond. Frenhofer was engaged there in amiable badinage with a young lady who promptly disappeared at Hunterleys' entrance. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... It was not the usual giggling, the usual exchange of badinage and coarse jest beyond the closed curtains. Quade did not come out rubbing his huge hands, his face crinkling with a sort of exultant satisfaction. The girl preceded him. She flung the curtains aside and stood there for a moment, her face ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... don't care twopence for his honesty and truth. If he ill-treats me—" Then she paused; looking into his face she had seen at once by the manner in which he had taken her badinage, without a smile, that it was necessary that she should be serious as to her matrimonial prospects. "I suppose I had better let you tell your story," she said, "and I will sit still ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on. 'Pea-souper!' was the epithet most in favour amongst his ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... dry-goods—all that man requires for his physical well-being. The town itself was swarming with eager jostling throngs bound for many diverse points, and friends of a day shouted hearty good-bys, or exchanged good-natured badinage, as they ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... is never taken by surprize at the badinage of his patrons. One afternoon after a long wait and another day in the valley seemed sure to pass with no unusual incident, an old fellow arose from one of the ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... This kind of badinage was new to the farmer, and it amused him immensely. He did not grow sleepy so early in the evening, and as he was driving his work prosperously he shortened his hours of labor slightly. She also found time to read the county paper and ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... Mr. Blennerhassett, the feather-light badinage flying back and forth between Mrs. Alston and her sire, smacked of unbecoming levity. He had looked up a topic for ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... gayly, Billy and Uncle William, after the meal was over, ascended to the drawing-room. There, however, the man, in spite of the young woman's gay badinage, fell to dozing in the big chair before the fire, leaving Billy with only Spunkie for company—Spunkie, who, disdaining every effort to entice her into a romp, only winked and blinked stupid eyes, and finally curled herself on the rug for ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... rude attempts at cultivation—a flowering vine trailed over the porch of one cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under the roses of another. A little farther on Mr. Hamlin came upon some barelegged children wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought upon them with a badinage peculiar to himself that they were emboldened to climb up his horse's legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... can't tell," answered the lieutenant in an evident tone of badinage; "but there appears to be somebody mighty uneasy about you. A slip of a Mexican boy has been backward and forward something less than a million of times. It's plain somebody sends the boy; but he's a close little ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... 'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how you would feel, then, if I had found you by the highway side, mangled by robbers, and set my foot upon your throat, and spat in your face. But—stop this. Why have I said this? simply to emphasize my forgiveness. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... embrace you with affection—I thank you with devout gratitude, for the many delightful moments I have enjoyed in your society. I regularly read your "London Charivari:" it is magnificent—superb! What wit—what agacerie—what exquisite badinage is contained in every line of it! You are the veritable monarch of English humour. Hail, then, great fun-ambule, PUNCH THE FIRST! Long may you live, to flourish your invincible baton, and to increase the number of your laughing subjects. Your "Physiology ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... wears in long curls falling over his shoulders, as did the cavaliers, and he is dressed with great care in the height of military fashion, evidently a gallant and debonair gentleman. He has just ceased from badinage with Rooke, in which that honest soldier's somewhat homely army jokes have been worsted by the graceful play of Graham's wit, who was ever gay, but never coarse, who was no ascetic, and was ever willing to drink the king's health, but, as his worst enemies used grudgingly to admit, cared ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... few moments more, after some light badinage, he left her with Mr. and Mrs. Muir on the piazza, and went to claim his ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... resolute. There was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... the unfashionable hotel. Here I found accommodation. I dressed, sometimes laughing, sometimes whistling, sometimes standing motionless in doubt. Bah! It was only a lark. . . . I thought of the girl in Mouquin's; how much better it would have been to spend the evening with her, exchanging badinage, and looking into each other's eyes! Pshaw! I covered my face with the grey mask and descended to ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... a trial—for me. Ours is not one of those old-fashioned residences with thick walls that muffle sound, and where servants can be consigned to dwell in the bowels of the earth. Every noise which arises in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage with the butcher's boy to the raucous grind of the knife-machine, echoes through the house via the study ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various

... him kiss his sweetheart," Kay bantered the old man—and then blushed, in the guilty knowledge that her badinage had really been inspired by a sudden desire to learn whether Don Mike had a sweetheart or not. Pablo promptly and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... one, or two and two, flung badinage to all corners of the room. Afterward, as they wheeled from time to time in their chairs, they bitterly insulted each other with the utmost good-nature, taking unerring aim at faults and riddling personalities with the quaint and cynical humour of a newspaper office. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... Cecile's mother, and Mr. Errol with Mrs. Carmichael. The Squire was busy, so the veteran and he were left alone. For a time, they smoked and talked, listening all the while, as they could not fail, to the merry badinage of the party on the verandah. At last he could stand it no longer. He rose, bade his companion good-night, and strolled away on to the road. Once out of observation from the house, he walked rapidly to his new quarters. "Is that you, Styles?" asked Mrs. Tibbs, as he entered. He assured the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... the girl readily, her eyes dancing at the contemplation of a few moments' badinage with a new ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... The badinage seemed in the worst possible taste to the watching Mrs. Delancy, but she forbore comment, although she saw her niece wince visibly. Cicily's pride, however, came to her rescue, and she contrived to restrain herself from any revelation of her hurt that could ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... replied, rising and watching Darrell as he removed her wrap and prepared to escort her to the ball-room. His playful badinage had not deceived her. As she took his arm she said, in a ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... mind for badinage, and I turned my face from him sullenly. Silence fell till we jolted into the courtyard of "The Jolly Soldier," where Creagh, Macdonald, and Hamish Gorm, having dismounted from their horses, waited to carry us into ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... Nurse timidly—for, the stress being over, he was Staff again and she was a Junior and not even entitled to a Senior's privileges, such as returning occasional badinage. ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... we call news—local news, events, casualties, the happenings of the day,—they do give ideas, opinions; they do discuss politics, the social drift; they give the intellectual ferment of Paris; they supply the material that Paris likes to talk over, the badinage of the boulevard, the wit of the salon, the sensation of the stage, the new movement in literature and in politics. This may be important, or it may be trivial: it is commonly more interesting than much of that which ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... am so very sorry if my nonsense in the Mercury had any general air of hostility, to say nothing of any incidental injustices of which I was quite unaware. I meant it to be quite amiable; like the tremulous badinage of the Oldest Inhabitant in the bar parlour, when he has been guyed by the brighter lads of the village. I cannot imagine that I ever said anything about you or any particular person being a snob; for it was quite out of my thoughts ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... seemed to possess the crowd, and more than once bits of green, and handfuls of sweets were tossed into my lap; while laughter, and gay badinage greeted us from every side. Cassion took this rather grimly, and gave stern word to the soldier escort, but I found it all diverting enough, and had hard work to retain my dignity, and not join in the merriment. It was darker at the foot of the hill, ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... "But, badinage aside, I know very little of the Bar-O entanglements and complications. It's an old story. Grandaddy knows all about it but he doesn't talk. There are few facts and many rumors. For three generations it's ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... you, O, you men of the time, who are bent upon pleasure, who attend the balls and the opera and who upon retiring this night will seek slumber with the aid of some threadbare blasphemy of old Voltaire, some sensible badinage of Paul Louis Courier, some essay on economics, you who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities; I beg of you, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, do not smile with noble disdain, do not ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... in amazement; and directly it flashed upon him that there was too much solemnity in her look and tone for badinage. Something that he had noticed during the past few months came back to him, and he trembled with the weight of suspense ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... badinage—I hope far distant is the day When from these scenes terrestrial our friend shall pass away! We like to hear his cheery voice uplifted in the land, To see his calm, benignant face, to grasp his honest hand; We like him for his learning, ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... Bowers, were, if I remember rightly, known collectively as the Bunderlohg. Although numerically superior to their vis-a-vis, the Ubdugs, and always ready to revile them, the Ubdugs kept their end up and usually came out victorious in discussions or in badinage. ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... have had your hands full, for I reckon she's pooty heavily mortgaged in that fashion, already," returned Miss Reed with mere badinage than spitefulness in the suggestion. "And Mr. Champney was run pooty close by a French cousin of hers when he was here. Yo' haven't got any French books to lend me, co'nnle—have yo'? Paw says you read a heap of French, and I find it mighty hard to keep up MY practice since I left the Convent ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... doctrine thus formulated is the one that M. Rossi prefers. Now, would it please M. Rossi to have us render his theory of monopoly analytically and ours of labor synthetically? I can give him the satisfaction. . . . . But I should blush, with so earnest a man, to prolong such badinage. M. Rossi knows better than any one that analysis and synthesis of themselves prove absolutely nothing, and that the important work, as Bacon said, is to make exact ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... perceptible French accent in a fine clear voice. But she spoke little and said practically nothing: which was a shock to Marian Prohack, who had imagined that in the circles graced by Lady Massulam conversation varied from badinage to profundity and never halted. It was not that Lady Massulam was tongue-tied, nor that she was impolite; it was merely that with excellent calmness she did not talk. If anybody handed her a subject, she just dropped it; the floor around ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... sit at a conference with Flavelle and not think hard; or accept a duty from his committee and not discharge it. He demanded on behalf of the public—service. No man ever sat on a committee with him who had time for badinage. That man with the slow, high voice and the steady look was judging other men by results. Men came to believe that when there was a public task to perform, Flavelle was the man to take it. He was almost forced into service, often by the public indolence of ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... blue, full and without a trace of softness. Her lips were red and well shaped, her teeth white and even. She was on the shady side of forty, but looked ten years younger. Her customers admired her and loved to exchange a little coarse badinage in which the good woman more ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... temps Eut de tous les honnetes gens L'amour et l'estime en partage: Qui toujours pleine de bon sens Sut de chaque saison de l'age Faire a propos un juste usage: Qui dans son entretien, dont on fut enchante Sut faire un aimable alliage De l'agreable badinage, Avec la politesse et la solidite, Et que le ciel doua d'un esprit droit et sage, Toujours d'intelligence avec la verite, Clusine est, grace au ciel, en ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... one case we associate factitious pleasure, in the other factitious pain, with the object: both produce pernicious effects upon the temper, and retard the natural progress of the understanding. The advocates in favour of "scholastic badinage" have urged, that it excites an interest in the minds of children similar to that which makes them endure a considerable degree of labour in the pursuit of their amusements. Children, it is said, work hard at play, therefore we should let them play at work. Would not this ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... other societies should hold no official position in ours. I wanted to make it an art centre," continued Mr. Whistler, with a sudden vigour and an earnestness for which the public would hardly give credit to this Master of Badinage and Apostle of Persiflage; "they wanted it to remain a shop, although I said to them, 'Gentlemen, don't you perceive that as shopmen you have already failed, don't you see, eh?' But they were under the impression that the sales decreased under my methods and my regime, ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... well-grounded, and when she recovered her spirits somewhat, while she was willing to listen and laugh or talk to him, there was always the suggestion of an armistice in her manner, and any attempt on his part to lead the conversation to something beyond mere badinage was sure to be adroitly parried or severely put ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... This may sound like badinage, but it is uttered in sad earnest. The wife's irrational longing to extract absolute sympathy of taste, opinion and feeling, from her wedded lord, is a baneful growth which is as sure to spring up about the domestic hearth as pursley—named by the Indian, "the white man's foot"—to show itself about ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... kind of politeness which is necessary in the intercourse among gentlemen, it makes them comprehend badinage, and it keeps them from using and employing certain figures of speech, too rude and unrefined, which are often used thoughtlessly when we hold to our opinion with too ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... Myra did not feel particularly energetic, and she sat down on a comfortable deck chair beside her aunt and several other women and girls seated in a group gossiping and exchanging badinage with two or three men of the party standing by their chairs or lounging against ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... This badinage was uttered with the fire of youth, combined with the authority of age, accustomed to be obeyed, and the listener offered no rejoinder; but the speaker, having approached, gazed into her eyes with a twinkling smile of mirth, that gradually ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... she had heard that morning from young Stanton of Greenfield's interest in the young sculptor; adding a hint or two of the use to be made of this information. Rangely, just behind her, was chatting with Miss Frances in that half amorous badinage which some girls always provoke, perhaps because they expect and ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... white powder the coats of the passers-by; clusters of flowers tied with favors of gay-colored ribbon were lavishly flung at the feet of bright-eyed peasant girls, who rejected or accepted them at pleasure, with light words of badinage or playful repartee; clowns danced and tumbled, dogs barked, church bells clanged, and through all the waving width of color and movement crept the miserable, shrinking forms of diseased and loathly beggars whining ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... round the fire. Then Mrs. Coombes went to get the tea, and Jennie sat coquettishly on the arm of Mr. Clarence's chair until the tea-things clattered outside. "What was that I heard?" asked Mrs. Coombes playfully, as she entered, and there was badinage about kissing. They were just sitting down to the little circular table when the first intimation of Mr. Coombes' ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... look her up. It is dangerous to leave her to her own devices. She may have offended half the company by this time." Elfreda strolled off in search of her troublesome charge. Grace crossed the gymnasium, her keen eyes darting from the floor, where groups of daintily gowned girls stood exchanging gay badinage, and resting after the last waltz, to the chairs and divans placed at intervals against the walls that were for the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... of hers, since these monologues at times would involve numberless characters, chipping in from manifold quarters of a wholesale discussion, and querying and exaggerating, agreeing and controverting, till the dishes she was washing would clash and clang excitedly in the general badinage. Loaded with a pyramid of glistening cups and saucers, she would improvise a gallant line of march from the kitchen table to the pantry, heading an imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly return, rippling her rosy fingers ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... not been the establishing of a reputation. The scorn of cowboys, the ridicule of gamblers, the badinage of the young bucks of the settlement—these I had soon made dangerous procedures for any one. I was quick with ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have been palpable enough to any one accustomed to the world; but Phillis was not, and it distressed or rather bewildered her. 'Unchristian' had to her a very serious meaning; ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... annoyed at this mingling of praise and badinage, especially when she relieved me from all sense of intrusion. Moreover, she looked so brilliant, so sparkling and happy, that I watched her, amazed at the metamorphosis from her ordinarily calm, intellectual conversation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... Arabin this badinage was peculiarly painful; and yet he could not tear himself away and leave it. He believed, still believed with that sort of belief which the fear of a thing engenders, that Mrs Bold would probably become the wife of Mr Slope. Of Mr Slope's little adventure in the garden he knew nothing. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... ten minutes of supper Miss Messiter did not appear, and the two guardians who flanked her chair solicitously were the object of much badinage. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... is my armour; warriors ever wear A cuirass of strong steel before their breasts; A woman carries but a little shield Of scorn and badinage, to break the force On her weak woman-heart, of ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask

... kept up a stream of talk, in the way of badinage, asking his friends to name whatever article of diet they wished, as he could furnish one almost as well as another. Finally, when the thing had continued long enough, he produced the supper, and it was a surprise ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... her part, well remembered the day when Hubert had spoken to her for the first time of his intended journey, and how he had added, in a tone which she now knew to be badinage, but which then, alas! she had believed ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... his faculties in repose. Presently he would be in the presence of Iras; she was waiting for him; waiting with song and story and badinage, sparkling, fanciful, capricious—with smiles which glorified her glance, and glances which lent voluptuous suggestion to her whisper. She had sent for him the evening of the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard of Palms; she had sent for ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... last she was launched into life, and the days of her isolation gone by forever. She was in the centre of things. And yet —well, nothing could be perfect. Perhaps she demanded too much. Once or twice, in the intimate and somewhat uproarious badinage that had been tossed back and forth in the drawing-room after dinner, her delicacy had been offended: an air of revelry had prevailed, enhanced by the arrival of whiskey-and-soda on a tray. And at the time she had been caught up by an excitement in the grip of which she still found herself. She ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... surprising word began to go about the district that next year there would be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced to Rowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for allowing two ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... edition, and only four of these correspond to the original text. The reviewer confined his remarks to the first thirty lines of the poem and very properly neglected the rest. He followed, with moderate success, the method of quotation with interpolated sarcasm and badinage—a method that was afterwards effectively pursued by the early Edinburgh Reviewers and the Blackwood coterie. There are few examples of that style in the eighteenth century reviews, but some noteworthy specimens of a later period—e.g., ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... men kept the little company alive with their pranks and their badinage. Grahame discovered in the Captain a rare personality, who had seen the globe in its entirety, particularly the underside, as a detective and secret service agent for various governments. He was a tall, slender man, rather like ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... is poked at Euripides and his dramatic methods, which supply matter for so much witty badinage in several others of our ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... The commission he had accepted in her behalf from Mrs. Owen carried a serious responsibility. These things he pondered as they walked together. He felt the pathos of her black gown; but she had rallied from the first shock of her sorrow, and met him in his key of badinage. She was tall—almost as tall as he; and in the combined moon- and star-light of the open spaces their ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... by the unaffected naturalness of his words, was unfeignedly relieved at finding him restored to the normal. Usually his supply of light-hearted badinage was unceasing. He knew exactly when and how to season it with more serious statements. It is this rare quality that makes tolerable a long day's ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... corresponded exactly to the person she had seen in her dream. Struck with astonishment, she could not help exclaiming, "Behold the priest of my dream." She was requested to relate the dream, which she did quite simply, and as a matter of course, had to submit to a good deal of badinage about her vision, as they called it, but jest soon turned to earnest, and before parting M. de Maisonneuve and Sister Bourgeois conceived a lasting friendship for each other. He asked if she would like to go to Montreal and teach a primary ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... slow in drying, as it was not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and stackers, thrilling incidents of the ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... community. It was distinctly an aristocratic society: elegant in dress, punctilious in manner, exacting in taste, ready to be amused, and not indifferent to criticism when it took the form of sprightly badinage or of keen and trenchant satire. The informal organization of society, which made it possible to reach and affect the Town as a whole, is suggested by the division ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... danger of immediate dissolution. He was enjoying life, and he was full of ambition and zest. For him there was to be no wasting in despair because a woman was fair and cold. Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she had told him she could ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... seemed interminable and she found herself contrasting the stiff formality with the genial hospitality of her father's table. She saw again the softly lighted room with its open windows through which the flowers peeped, and heard his gay badinage and his low, sweet laugh. Could she be the same Evadne, or was ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... express their opinion, yet their denunciations will probably produce an exactly opposite effect to the one they intend, their own conduct proving the pernicious influence of their theory. Their abuse will be, not the expression, half in badinage, of minds protesting by anticipation against the abuse of forms and ceremonies; but the ignorant invective of coarse-minded people against a principle that would tame them, and mould them into a more agreeable presence. They exclaim loudly ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... across at her. His words were words of courteous badinage, but Lady Cynthia was conscious of a strange little sense ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... there was a little commotion in the hall, and Miss Lenox did come in with Tony Thorpe. She had spoken to my mother, kissed Helen and answered Mr. Floyd's badinage before she saw me, yet when her eyes did turn toward me she showed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... four-wheeled traffic. Bank Holiday times always bring out old stored-away vehicles and odd people; one saw tricars and electric broughams and dilapidated old racing motors with huge pneumatic tyres. Once our holiday-makers saw a horse and cart, and once a youth riding a black horse amidst the badinage of the passersby. And there were several navigable gas air-ships, not to mention balloons, in the air. It was all immensely interesting and refreshing after the dark anxieties of the shop. Edna wore a brown straw hat with poppies, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... mouthed beneath the Rose, Rumorous Badinage of These and Those? - The Lady Lodger in the Flat upstairs Knows all you do and say - she knows - ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin

... keep a perturbed and restless Major from the line waiting while he finishes his light-hearted badinage with a subordinate. It is altogether magnificent in its sheer sangfroid. Why is it that such a one is labelled merely A.M.L.O., when he should obviously be the M.L.O.? He has his subordinate, happily insignificant and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various

... Perhaps Richard Fitzpatrick is meant, who later on joined in writing The Rolliad, and who was the cousin and 'sworn brother' of Charles Fox. Walpole describes him as 'an agreeable young man of parts,' and mentions his 'genteel irony and badinage.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 167 and ii. 560. He was Lord Shelburne's brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have met him, as well as in Fox's company. There are one or two lines in The Rolliad which border on profanity. Rogers (Table-Talk, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... transporting. To deck that soft warm hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. It lit up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch, bent over his press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's badinage. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... an' half-a-dozen o' them rotten!"—like "The devil go with you an' sixpence!" is another of those pleasantries which mostly occur in the good-humored badinage between the sexes. ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... presentable. The professor brings in Gertrude. He is—if the word maybe applied to such a bookish man—inexpressibly jolly. Mrs. Grandon hardly knows how to take him, and is on her guard against some plot in the air. Violet laughs and parries his gay badinage, feeling as if she were in an enchanted realm. Floyd has a spice of amazement ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Gabriel the moment she had spoken to him, now turned toward him again suddenly with an expression like that of an animal which pricks up his ears. The keen fire of the old days shot for a moment into her eyes, for it was the first word of badinage or humor that Fanny Newt had heard for ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... acquaintance of the hour, and had many times to check my American curiosity and cold, criticising stare. For it was curious to see young men and women from the lowest social strata meet and mingle in a public hall without lewdness or badinage, but even with gentleness and consideration. The truth is, however, that the class of women known as victims of the social evil do not sink within many degrees as low in Europe as they do in this country, either in their own opinion or ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... seemed inadequate and commonplace. He would smile grimly as with dogged persistence he started this latest child of his fancy out along the trail so thickly bestrewn with the skeletons of elder offspring. In measure, as badinage had previously passed him harmlessly by, it now cut deeply. No one in the entire town thought him a more complete failure than he considered himself. Skies, from being sunny, grew suddenly sodden; not a tenement or ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... consciousness of those who discourse about it from a superficial acquaintance. With him language was a means and not an end. If he was plain and even coarse, it was from choice rather than because he lacked delicacy of perception; for in badinage, the most ticklish use to which words can be put, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... This kindly badinage was gratifying, though it helped to reveal the interrupted topic of their conversation. There was no hiding the desperate character of the coming adventure. The Andromeda's crew did not attempt to minimize it. The choice offered lay only in the manner of their ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... sooner told of this than he shut the gate of his house, after sending his secretary to the commissary of police of the section. In the meantime, both the police agents and the girl entreated him to let them out, as the whole was merely a badinage; but he remained inflexible, and they were all three carried by the real police ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... The badinage of other days came to him, the days when women had rather bothered. They would be amused, these women, did they know his surrender to the god unknown at that time—the god he had sometimes smiled at because he had not known. Day after to-morrow ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... relied entirely upon his help. He had found the twine, and driven the nails, and steadied the ladder when Sophia's light form mounted it in order to hang the mistletoe. They had been so happy. The echo of their voices, their snatches of Christmas carols, their laughter and merry badinage, was still in his heart. He remembered the impromptu lunch, which they had enjoyed so much while at work. He could see the mother come smiling in, with constant samples of the Christmas cheer fresh out of the oven. He had ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Badinage of this sort did not displease the fisherman. "It is not often they board us nowadays," he said, more hopefully, "but of course one never can tell. Perhaps we will sail ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... young man like George as to the best way in which he could play tuft-hunter to his uncle. From such lectures George would have started away in disgust; but something, Sir Lionel thought, might be done by tact, by finesse, and a daily half-scornful badinage, skilfully directed towards the proper subject. By degrees, too, he thought that George did listen to him, that he was learning, that he might be taught to set his eyes greedily on those mountains of wealth. And so Sir Lionel persevered with ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... from those skeleton ranks that lay behind Lord Rosebery, but then there was in the whole air that curious and almost audible silence—to use a conscious paradox—which conveys to the trained ear clearer sounds of absorption and attention than the loudest cheers. And then you began to forget the badinage of the earlier sentences—you forgave the frigidity and self-repression—you became strongly fascinated by the mobile face, inscrutable eyes, and the voice penetrated to your innermost ear; he gave you an immense sense of a clear, masterful, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor



Words linked to "Badinage" :   raillery, backchat, give-and-take, banter



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