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Banter   /bˈæntər/   Listen
Banter

noun
1.
Light teasing repartee.  Synonyms: backchat, give-and-take, raillery.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Banter" Quotes from Famous Books



... worlds that met that day - The world of work and the world of play; And the grimy lads from the reeking shaft Nudged each other and grinned and chaffed. 'Got 'em all out!' 'A cousin of mine!' So ran the banter ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... banter ceased, for the sergeant's men passed through the swing gate, and to Waller's great relief he was able to make his way back to the hall, very silent now as he went over the day's proceedings, and thought of the chances of the men coming back to make a fresh search, while the gardener ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... Shakespeare's Rosalind perhaps the most popular heroine of English comedy. Yet Lodge furnished to Shakespeare far more than a name for his heroine. In the dialogue between Ganymede (Rosalynde) and Aliena there is a good deal of lively banter that must have furnished more than a suggestion for the teasing playfulness of Rosalind in the play. Such, for example, is the conversation between the two girls upon finding a love poem "carved on a pine tree."[2] As in the drama, Rosalynde's ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... hungry, began to eat whilst still indulging in banter. All at once, however, he exclaimed: "Well, my dear Abbe, as the Pope is looking at us, this is the moment to speak of him. I promised to tell you how he sunk several millions of St. Peter's Patrimony in the frightful financial crisis of which you have ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... woman remained without a movement. She was not deceived by the banter of the moment. She knew that to all of the others, if not to Peter Strange's odd little daughter, it was the thief who was being spotted and brought thus hilariously to light. And her eyes grew hard, and her lips grey, and she failed to unglove ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... Clodius attempted to banter his antagonist. "You are a fine gentleman," he said; "you have been at Baiae" (Baiae was a fashionable watering-place on the Campanian coast). "Well," said Cicero, "that is better than to have been at the 'matrons' worship.'" And the attack and repartee went on. "You ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... soon palled. To which add, that if we are minded to discourse on a life of pleasure, these men won't give us leave to go on, but will presently confess themselves that the pleasures of the body are but short, or rather indeed but of a moment's continuance; if they do not design to banter us or else speak out of vanity, when Metrodorus tells us, We many times spit at the pleasures of the body, and Epicurus saith, A wise man, when he is sick, many times laughs in the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the young men, the mothers and older women rather stiff, and usually hampered by at least one child, which they carry on their backs or on their hips, while another holds on to the garment which replaces our skirts. There is plenty of laughter and banter with the men, who look on unmoved at the efforts of the weaker sex, only rarely offering a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... could be heard teasing her cousin Caspar on his performance that afternoon. The heavy young man, whose florid face was flushed with the champagne he had taken, made ineffective attempts to ward off the banter. Parker Hitchcock came to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... is not a bad one, I see no good reason why I should not introduce myself to the reader as Ralph Rover. My shipmates were kind, good-natured fellows, and they and I got on very well together. They did, indeed, very frequently make game of and banter me, but not unkindly; and I overheard them sometimes saying that Ralph Rover was a "queer, old-fashioned fellow." This, I must confess, surprised me much; and I pondered the saying long, but could come at no satisfactory conclusion as to that wherein my old-fashionedness lay. It is true ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... stories of the fine sights at the theatres and elsewhere had so far raised poor John's curiosity that one evening he entreated his companion to let him into the bottom of what he meant. The cunning villain turned it at first into a jest and continued to banter him about his being a country put, and so forth, until he perceived it was past twelve o'clock, and knew that it was too late for him to get in at home; then he told him that if he promised never to reveal it, he would tell him what he meant. John being ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... with banter. It was understood that the President should not be told—and that I should not tell him—of my talk with Mr. Sandford. Colonel Lamont undertook to arrange an audience with Mr. Cleveland for me. "You had better wait," he said, "until I can approach him with the suggestion ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... who fears God's anger more than the displeasure of his master. A pension, a title, a ribbon, are sufficient to make one forget the torments of hell and the pleasures of the celestial court. A woman's caresses expose him every day to the displeasure of the Most High. A joke, a banter, a bon-mot, make more impression upon the man of the world than all the grave notions of his religion. Are we not assured that a true repentance is sufficient to appease Divinity? However, we do not see that this true repentance is sincerely expressed; ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... in the free-traders' camp. The storm did not abate until nightfall, and during that time the men were engaged in digging their habitations clear of the snow that almost threatened to bury them. In this work, McTavish cheerfully took a hand, and, by his good-humored banter, won his way to the hearts of his fellow-toilers. Notwithstanding his industry, the Hudson Bay man kept his eye open for glimpses of Maria who, as he expected, was constantly about, now that Charles Seguis had ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... Venice, or the Vatican; and, guessing beforehand, guessing before the "Pictures" were produced, one might, I repeat, have been afraid lest Dickens should go through Italy as a kind of educated Sam Weller. Such prophecies would have been falsified by the event. The book as a whole is very free from banter or persiflage. Once and again the comic side of some situation strikes him, of course. Thus, after the ceremony of the Pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory of our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, Dickens says: "The whole thirteen sat down to dinner; grace ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... nearly five minutes. Where was he? What up to? Would he miss his appointment? No, I caught a glimpse of him at the door getting rid of hat and overcoat, pausing a moment with tall bent head to banter Rose, the little Chinese girl who usually drifted from table to table with cigars and cigarettes. Then he ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... worked, Auguste and Rose, and how cheerfully they worked! One could hear her singing, and him whistling, at it all day. Yet they seemed to have abundant leisure to exchange a deal of pleasantry and harmless banter. Auguste was a Swiss, and a bigoted Protestant, and never lost an opportunity of holding forth on the superiority of the reformed religion. If he thought the family were out of hearing, he would grow very animated and declamatory. But Rose, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... married, do you? Well, when you become a denizen of this higher, but none the less practical sphere, you may read, if you please, where, with wonder and strange emotion, I read, in the heavenly records of marriages.' ... [It was dated about the time of my birth.] 'Your banter is not so agreeable as your tenderness.' ... 'You are incorrigible. It will take me many a long age to bring you to a due sense of my importance,' etc. 'Some of my friends are beside themselves with mirth, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... she went to her room for a fresh handkerchief. She would accompany Helen home, would manage to slip into the library alone, and put it partly under a book, so that it would appear to be hidden, and thus account for it not having been seen before; or better yet, she would catch it up playfully and banter Helen on her carelessness in leaving her love letters so exposed. This last seemed a very clever plan, and with her spirits quite elated, Juno drove around with Helen, finding no one in the parlor below, and felicitating herself upon ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... to say," answered the Vicar, accustomed to parry Mr. Toller's banter about his belief in the new medical light. "I am out of the way and he ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... reception. "He received me," says Augustin, "like a father, and as a bishop he was pleased enough at my coming:"—peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit. This satis episcopaliter looks very like a sly banter at the expense of the saint. It is infinitely probable that St. Ambrose received Augustin, not exactly as a man of no account, but still, as a sheep of his flock, and not as a gifted orator, and that, in short, he shewed ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... barely made good our retreat when the boat arrived alongside, and her occupants were in another moment in possession of the felucca's deck. A torrent of ribald banter and raillery—of the sort which, coming from a drunken man, is expected to be received as jovial humour, but which a chance word or inadvertent glance of misappreciation may in a moment cause to be exchanged for expressions and acts of the most diabolical ferocity—was at once discharged ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... at this unwonted hour. In the pale-blue, kindly, woods-wise eyes of both the man and the boy shone the light of happy anticipation. They seemed too occupied and excited to make much response to the good-natured banter of their comrades, but grinned contentedly as they hastened their preparations for departure. The man was Steve Williams, best axe-man and stream-driver in the camp; the boy, young Steve, his eldest son, who was ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... utmost to improve his opportunity. Without openly speaking his love, he allowed it to appear in his every look and intonation. The girl met the attack with banter and raillery and adroit shiftings of the conversation whenever his ardent inferences became too obvious. Yet her evasion and her teasing could not always mask her maidenly pleasure over his adoration of her loveliness, and an occasional blush betrayed to him ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... evening passed with the banter that invariably took place when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's, the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as birds on ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... looked at his daughter with a little quizzical sadness in his faded gray eyes. He began to perceive the drift of her banter. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... banter he was very savage and he flung her hands from him. She at once laid hold of the strap to open the window. He burst into ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... Sir Luke's banter was generally accepted with indifference, but on this occasion it provoked Lady Dunstable. She protested with vehemence that she had given Mrs. Meadows every chance, and that a young woman who was both trivial and ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... naturally grave, assisted him toward maintaining the mock-serious tone which he chose to adopt; and Mrs. Thornton's peculiar style of face gave her the same advantage. It pleased each to express for the other an exaggerated sentiment of regard. They considered it banter and badinage. How far it was safe was another thing. But they had known one another years before, and were only resuming ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... lower than even to the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak, and perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say for ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want something a little in advance of our present life, and not below it. We have read with some attention weary pages of spiritual ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... club. The crowd was there; I sat down at a table and when somebody asked me what I'd have I took a glass of water. Several of my friends looked inquiringly at me and one asked: "On the wagon?" This attracted the attention of the entire group to my glass of water. I came in for a good deal of banter, mostly along the line that it was time I went on the wagon. This was varied with predictions that I would stay on from an hour to a day or so. I didn't like that talk, but I bluffed it out—weakly, to be sure. I said I had ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe

... mentioned it with disgust. Rolfe also had visited the island, and remembered it much more agreeably, his impressions seeming to be chiefly gastronomic; he recalled the exquisite flavour of Cyprian hares, the fat francolin, the delicious beccaficoes in commanderia wine; with merry banter from Carnaby, professing to despise a man who knew nothing of game but its taste. The conversation reverted to technicalities of sport, full of terms and phrases unintelligible to Harvey; recounting feats with 'Empress' and 'Paradox', the deadly results of a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... difficult to detect how much of conviction and how much of banter there was in his treatment of men engaged in the actual intellectual movement of our times. I found such to be the case in my own intercourse with him. He always attacked me in a bantering way, but, I thought, half in earnest too. Hence I never found ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... Under the seeming banter of her tone lurked real resentment. But he, with a smile—partly due to a finger too much Scotch—only answered, in ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... certainly. If we are not friends, who should be? Are we not both jackals hunting in the one pack, and jackal does not bite jackal." Then his mood changed with a swiftness which La Mothe soon found to be characteristic, a kindliness cast out the jarring banter from his face, and his luminous eyes grew wistful. "Friends? It is a good word, the very best word in the world. Friends are more than family or kinship, and not many care to call old Francois Villon friend nowadays. There was ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... hand-bags, blankets and a two-gallon demijohn. They said they had driven from Winona that day, and would stay all night. They ordered supper, and while it was in course of preparation, indulged in a good deal of banter back and forth. Of course, I had formed the determination of becoming acquainted with the contents of that demijohn in some way, by fair means or foul, and became deeply interested in their conversation, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... the window, half angry with herself that a kind of banter in which certainly there was very little wit should have power enough to disturb her. But though the shaft might be a slight one it was winged with a will; the intensity of Mrs. Evelyn's enjoyment ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... of inspiration leave their sources parched and dry, Scalding tears of indignation sear the hearts that beat too high; Chilly waters thrown upon it drown the fire that's in the bard; And the banter of the critic hurts his heart till it grows hard. At the fame your muse may offer let your lip in scorn be curled, 'Self and Pelf', my friend, remember, that's ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic /literati/, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes; and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... room where he was, to show there were no concealed weapons about him, Dionysius, by way of retort, observed, that he would prefer he would do so on leaving the room, as a security that he was carrying nothing off with him. And when Philip of Macedon, at a drinking party, began to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies which his father, Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and pretended to wonder how he could get any time from his other business to compose such elaborate and ingenious pieces, he replied, very much to the purpose, "It was at those ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... ability. The cross-examination of a foreign artist, employed by the Duke to repaint some portraits of the Cornaro family by Titian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to be ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... from being the frivolous young thing that her father's banter indicated. She had a train of admirers, never thinning from year to year, to be certain, for it had been the regular fate of adolescent male Shelbyville to get itself tangled up in love with Alice Price ever since her high-school days. Many of the youngsters soon ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... money left to bet as gentlemen bet, nor to back a well-heeled bird, nor to color my fancy for a horse. As for a mistress, or for those fugitive affairs of the heart which English fashion countenanced—nay, on which fashion insisted—I had no part in them, and brooked much banter from the gay world in consequence. It was not merely lack of money, nor yet a certain fastidiousness implanted, nor yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden, for my Renault blood was hot enough, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... that, Jimmy. So long, old man," and he threaded his way past the rear of the brigade, not without some good-humoured banter at his dishevelled appearance. ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... face like a girl's, a broad forehead topped with close-cropped hair, and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter. ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... And, captain, you'll do us the favour to stay, And take a short dinner here with us to-day: You're heartily welcome; but as for good cheer, You come in the very worst time of the year; If I had expected so worthy a guest—' 'Lord, madam! your ladyship sure is in jest; You banter me, madam; the kingdom must grant—' 'You officers, captain, are so complaisant!'"— "Hist, hussey, I think I hear somebody coming "— "No madam: 'tis only Sir Arthur a-humming. To shorten my tale, (for I hate ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf, and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such towering stature? Meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness. For "Krage" in the Danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot uses the lopped timbers as supports, as ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... girls laughed at her Americanisms and Colonial ways, and often teased her about them, Gipsy continued as great a favourite as ever, she took all the banter so good-temperedly, and returned it so smartly. There was always a delightful uncertainty also as to what she would do next, and the prospect of an exciting interlude by "Yankee Doodle", as she was nicknamed, was felt decidedly to relieve the monotony of the ordinary Briarcroft atmosphere. Not that ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... fierce exultation surged within her. She had half expected this, half dreaded it, and now that it had burst upon her in such volcanic fashion she realized that she had not been entirely prepared. She sought refuge in banter, facing him, her cheeks flushed, her ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... of the gentlemen seemed to put a bridle on the tongues of the little party, for Dexie was not slow in perceiving that Maxwell was trying to quiz her, and it was very hard to withstand the good-humored banter of this young gentleman. She stood the teasing as long as she thought necessary, then her ready tongue made Maxwell confess that for once he had met his match, and the laughable occurrence of their first meeting was allowed to drop. Dexie ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... is a crucifix, and Eugene is going to entrap us into a confession," returned De la Roche, who loved to banter his cousin. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... have me driven about by my servant like an apothecary, uncle?" No, Major Pendennis would on no account have his nephew appear like an apothecary; the august representative of the house of Pendennis must not so demean himself. And when Arthur, pursuing his banter, said, "And yet, I daresay, sir, my father was proud enough when he first set up his gig," the old major hemmed and ha'd, and his wrinkled face reddened with a blush as he answered, "You know what ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... During this little banter Nellie cries, "Pooh, pooh!" mamma looks pleased, and papa smiles gently. Then the fresh young voices of the brother and sister mingle ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... paper, in the New Monthly Magazine, is by no means novel; but the fine, cutting satire—the pleasant, lively banter on our vices and follies—which pervades every page of the article, is a set-off to the political frenzy and the literary lumber of other Magazines of the month. Each of them, it is true, has a readable paper, but one gem only contributes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... the shore, where peasants in bright-coloured shirts and vests lounged. After much haggling and good-humoured banter, Sanine hired one of the little boats. Ivanoff was a deft and powerful oarsman, and the boat shot forward across the water like a living thing. Sometimes the oars touched reeds or low-hanging branches which for a long while after such contact trembled above ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... articles of art, antiquarianism, and vertu, Hazlitt has only good-natured banter. Of what a strange jumble of apocryphal treasures the painter believed himself the possessor! And he was without the doubts and anxieties of ordinary collectors. They strive to believe and to cast aside all suspicion. But Cosway believed without the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... leisure. I give an hour a day to the King of Prussia to touch up a bit his works in prose and verse; I am his grammarian, not his chamberlain ... Never in any place in the world was there more freedom of speech touching the superstitions of men, and never were they treated with more banter and contempt. God is respected, but all they who have cajoled men in His ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... deal less than you were, Mr. Morrissy." There was a dangerous flush on Ben's cheeks, but the smoke was so dense that Morrissy failed to observe it. The men laughed again, accepting Ben's retort as a piece of banter. Ben went on doggedly: "I have in my pocket a permit to tear down the shops. Bennington gave it to me to produce. Look at it, if you doubt ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... letting her eyes rest on his in a way that took the edge from her banter and made him suddenly malleable ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... over Henry, and an attitude of proud reserve had taken the place of the careless banter with which he usually regaled the crew. He married Miss O'Brien in imagination to a strong man of villainous temper and despotic ideas, while the explanations he made to Miss Harcourt were too ingenious and involved to be confined in ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... 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. Throughout this banter, it was strange to note how infrequently the men smiled, particularly when directly engaged ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... the performance of this comedy the following play was given: first appeared a boy in woman's clothes who represented Virtue, and another in the character of Fortune. They began to banter each other as to which was the mightier, whereupon Fame suddenly appeared, standing on a globe which rested on a float, upon which were the words, "Gloria Domus Borgiae." Fame, who also called himself Light, awarded Virtue the prize over Fortune, saying that Caesar and Ercole ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... stroll out to them after his daily visit, and lying on the grass, his arms crossed behind his head, and a big cigar between his lips, would gently banter everybody. Tea came at five o'clock, and then Mrs. Decie appeared armed with a magazine or novel, for she was proud of her literary knowledge. The sitting was suspended; Harz, with a cigarette, would move between the table and the picture, drinking his tea, putting a touch in here and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... in which the woman said this left no doubt in the man's mind of her meaning. She was not trifling with him now, he knew. In her low-voiced words he found no trace of banter, of sophistry, nor of aught that he ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... name for the last sheaf is Boba (Old Woman), answering to the Polish name Baba. The Boba is said to sit in the corn which is left standing last. The person who binds the last sheaf or digs the last potato is the subject of much banter, and receives and long retains the name of the Old Rye-woman or the Old Potato-woman. The last sheaf—the Boba—is made into the form of a woman, carried solemnly through the village on the last harvest-waggon, and drenched ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... ideas treasured in his breast, He grew composed, and let his anger rest; Till Counter once (when wine so long went round, That friendship and discretion both were drown'd) Began, in teasing and triumphant mood, His evening banter: —"Of all earthly good, The best," he said, "was an obedient spouse, Such as my friend's—that every one allows: What if she wishes his designs to know? It is because she would her praise bestow; What if she wills that he remain at home? She knows that mischief may from travel come. ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... medicated draughts are often mentioned in Romances. The reader will recollect the banter upon them in Don Quixote, where the Knight of La enumerates to Sancho the cures which had been performed upon many valorous champions, covered with wounds. The Hindus, in their books on medicine, talk of drugs for the recovery of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... way of making friends unconsciously. I can see that," Mrs. Tellingham said, kindly. "Now, do not be discouraged. You will make friends among the girls in just the same way. Don't mind their banter for a while. The rough ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... a great deal more banter and fun, and the March of Education was resumed with small recruits in clean pinafores darting out of homes here and there to join it. It ended at last at the battered gate of the little schoolhouse. The East Ward was a small part of the town, consisting mostly of lake, so the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... the buts," said Oliver, smiling, and just then, piqued by his companion's banter, he would have crossed had the danger been ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... I, that whole day, Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. So home we went, and all the livelong way With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. "Now," said he, "will you climb the top of Art; You cannot fail but work in hues to dim The Titianic Flora. Will you match My Juliet? you, not you,—the Master, Love, A more ideal ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... At the same time, I can not help stating my own impression that a natural susceptibility, roused by those slighting remarks from Captain Thorn's correspondence, to which Mr. Irving as an historian gives currency, has somewhat blinded my excellent friend to the tone of banter, so characteristic of the chronicler of the Knickerbockers, in which all these particulars are given, more as traits of the character of the stern old sea-captain, with his hearty contempt for land-lubbers and literary clerks, than as a dependable account of the persons ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... had talked to Hadria about a thousand topics in which they were both interested, there had been nothing personal in their conversation. He was disposed, at times, to treat her in a spirit of affectionate banter. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... was, he was becoming increasingly impatient of the continual banter expected of him by Cliff and even the others. As original members of the team, they expected an intimacy that he was finding it increasingly difficult to deliver. Among other things, he wished that Cliff, in particular, would mind his attitude when such followers as Guemama ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... a-laughing, and began to banter her. The gentleman who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and, finding her very handsome, said it was but just that she should try, and that he had orders to let every lady ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault

... or provost-marshal ever gave a more hazardous gauntlet to run, thought I, and I said as much; but my musings brought only a good-humoured banter from ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... While this disgusting banter was going on I observed a planter ride up to one of the brokers and whisper for some time in his ear. The planter was a bad but unmistakable likeness of my friend Moore, worked over, so to speak, with a loaded brush and heavily glazed with old Bourbon whisky. After giving his ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... some parts. The audience was not a pleasant one to face. It was the First Consul's habit to invite forty persons to dinner, and a hundred and fifty for the evening, and consequently to hear, criticise, and banter us without mercy" (Memoirs of Duchesse d'Abrantes, tome ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... apart, as if in a kind of pet. Nay they have made a Report on that old Catherine Theot, and her Regenerative Man spoken of by the Prophets; not in the best spirit. This Theot mystery they affect to regard as a Plot; but have evidently introduced a vein of satire, of irreverent banter, not against the Spinster alone, but obliquely against her Regenerative Man! Barrere's light pen was perhaps at the bottom of it: read through the solemn snuffling organs of old Vadier of the Surete Generale, the Theot Report had its effect; wrinkling the general Republican ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... and devoid of impartiality and liberty. A close association of this kind between two persons must, in my view, narrow the mind, detract from anything like breadth of view, and fetter the independence. Beule often used to banter me upon this score. He was somewhat attached to me, and was anxious to render me a service, though I had not done the equivalent for him. Upon a certain occasion I voted against him in favour of some one who had been ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... question before it upon its own merits and without conscious comparison with historical examples, through a power of judgment and perception ripened and broadened by the mastery of principles which have ruled the great campaigns of the world. He was fond of conviviality, loved to banter good-humoredly his staff officers and intimates, and was altogether an attractive and companionable man, with intellectual activity enough to make his society stimulating and full of lively discussion. I could easily understand Garfield's saying, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... fair I 've braced me wi' pride, The bruse I hae won, and a kiss of the bride; And loud was the laughter, gay fellows among, When I utter'd my banter, or chorus'd my song. Dowie to dree are jesting and glee, When poverty ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the betters than their judgment, I selected an outsider, and took the longest date named for my day, August 20th. The odds fluctuate daily in the market, according to the view the knowing ones take of the weather: these bets form a subject of interest and banter ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... no poaching, no snares are laid for the unwary, and if harm is done it is because people have misunderstood them. The man flirts because he loves {38} to say pretty things to a woman. He revels in an interchange of banter and repartee which makes her eyes sparkle and his pulses beat the faster. The girl flirts out of the abundance of her joyous vitality. She suits herself to the companion of the hour. She knows nothing of the tender passion, she is not ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... Marston; "the case is too serious for banter of this kind. My dear boy," he added, kindly, "I am glad to see you angry, but nevertheless, you must condescend to explain. The longer you allow suspicion to rest on yourself the longer it will be before it ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... it diverted attention for a time from the fact of Paul's absence, and when the religious went back to the house and found Brother Andrew returned to his old duty as doorkeeper, the laughter was renewed, and there was some playful banter. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... intercepting him, and his rude bulk smiling down into her upturned face with a commanding yet amiable restiveness, made a picture to the players and to the distant pilot, but much more than a picture to the captive himself. He had thought he had been fending off the banter of a child, but now, suddenly, this was not a child. A being was here not entirely mundane nor quite supernal yet surpassing all his earlier knowledge of feminine quality, something for which a year's hard thinking would not have found him a definition. ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... handsomely for the appearance of young Glenuskie, his horse, and his attendants, that the whole floor of their quarters was strewn with doublets, boots, chaperons, and gloves, saddles, bridles, and spurs, when the Duke of Bedford loitered into the room, and began to banter James for thus (as he supposed) pranking himself out to meet the lady of his love; and then bemoaned the fripperies that had become the rage in their once bachelor court, vowing, between sport and ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... good-naturedly at the banter his questions had elicited, and solemnly assured them that there were not men enough in the whole North to take Richmond. Our man was probably misinformed as to who their interlocutor was. General Lee did not wear long, bushy whiskers, ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... for boyish banter, but I knew that it was something more; the use of the third person changed from chaff to scorn as I listened, and my sympathetic resolution went to ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... said musingly. . . "I wonder . . ." then she laughed forgivingly. "Come, let us cease this constant banter. We have been at it ever since we met, and it profits nothing to ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... the subject to athletics, and was in the highest spirits the rest of the day; but underneath all his fun and banter the question constantly arose in his inner consciousness: How could he elude his roommate's watchfulness and on the coming Saturday ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... last adventure, which gave me endless opportunities to banter her, one would have thought I might have been on my guard as to what her real intentions were; but she managed to mislead me with an art of dissimulation quite admirable, and lulled me into a fatal security with regard ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... himself "altogether disqualified for it by nature."[23] "I have refrained, as much as human frailty will permit, from all satirical composition,"[24] he said. For satire he seems to have substituted that kind of "serious banter, a style hovering between affected gravity and satirical slyness," which has been pointed out as characteristic of him.[25] Washington Irving noticed a similar tone in all his familiar conversations ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... had always stood him in such stead with the young ladies who, to use his own expression, were 'dead nuts on him,' that his love-making, under whatever circumstances, always took the form of genial banter de haut en bas. 'Don't be a bloomin' fool!' was the phrase he deemed of most efficacy in softening the female heart; and the result seemed to justify him, for after some half-hour's wrangling, Clem abandoned her ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... Mammoth Cave and a voice like the whisperings of the battle zone in France. Take a good look at him while he is quiet for ten seconds hand running. Everything about him is tremendous—except his size. He is built to withstand banter, ridicule and jollying; his sturdy nature is guaranteed proof against the battering assaults of unholy mirth from other scouts; his round face and curly hair are the delight of the girls of Bridgeboro; his loyalty is as the mighty rock of Gibraltar. A bully little scout ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... relaxed, Anthony perceived first of all that most of the grimness passed away from the narrowed eyes and they lighted instead with good-humoured banter, though of a weary nature. One by one, they cast off ten years of age; the lines rubbed out; the jaws which had thrust out grew normal; the leaning ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... her the least bit seriously—he never did. Her occasional courtship of him had been always so light and airy, so dispassionately epigrammatic, that he looked on it as mere whimsical banter and rather good amusement. She had plagued him into consenting to that kiss on the forehead which she gave him each time they met, referring to it constantly as an advantage won by hard effort. The circumstance of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... played! In all the flowery kingdom so many foolish people could not have been found in one place. What chaff and banter! What laying aside of cares, responsibilities, and heavy hearts, if there were any, and just being free and young! For a time at least the years fell away from us and we relived all the games and folk-dances we ever knew. True, time had stiffened joints and some of the movements were ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... a very horrible fate to be blinded. But somehow the blind men themselves seldom seem to be overwhelmed by its horribleness. If you want to hear the merriest banter in a war hospital, visit the blind men's wards. The pathos of them lies less in the sadness of the victims than in the triumphant, wonderful fact that they are not sad. I wish we others all inhabited the same mysteriously jocund spiritual realm as Jock and his comrades, ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... good-humored banter had passed between us on the subject of American wives and Hindu wives, I had gone ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... "Pray, don't banter, Mrs. Kinloch. I hoped to find you in a more complaisant humor. There are topics which cannot be discussed with the square precision of legal rules,—thoughts that require sympathy before they can be expressed." And he dropped his eyes with a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... and tumult of voices hovered about the two cages. Men appraised the fighters and made their bets, and Grouse Piet and Henri Durant made their throats hoarse flinging banter and contempt at each other. At the end of the hour the crowd began to thin out. In the place of men and women half a hundred dark-visaged little children crowded about the cages. It was not until then that ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... don't say whether you forgive him or not, Rachel," said Sir William, whose idea of carrying off the situation was to indulge in the time-honoured banter suitable to ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... education: Then Alice would come in and make the dispute a subject for sprightly mockery. Alice was the Princess in those days. He quarrelled with her often, but only to resume the tone of affectionate banter an hour after. Alice was now Mrs. Rodman, and had declared that she hated him, that in her life she would never speak to him again. Would it not have been better if things had gone the natural course? Alice would no ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... will be in German hands." This brought an emphatic denial from one of his confreres who insisted that the Germans had already reached the end of their rope. A certain correspondent, joining in the argument, came in for a deal of banter for taking the war de luxe in a good hotel ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... particularly well. This completed his mortification. There was no concealing the awkwardness of his position. The sneers of the waiter revealed it. His acquaintances amused themselves for some tune at his expense, professing their inability to relieve him. When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, the waiter was paid, and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... Brand, Braund, and Barnes, is a Banter on Criticks, and Genealogists, who make such a Pother about the Orthography of Names and Things, that many Times, three Parts in four of a Folio Treatise, is taken up in ascertaining the Propriety of a Syllable, by which Means the Reader is left undetermined; ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous

... for the hens to lay in, and on the arrival of strangers, men, women, and children ply their calling as hucksters with a great deal of noisy haggling; all their transactions are conducted with civil banter and good temper. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... over by a little good-natured banter, and often annoyed Chief Justice Campbell when I woke him up with laughter. And yet he liked me, for although often annoyed, he was never really angry. He used to crouch his head down over his two forearms and go to sleep, or pretend to, by way of showing it did not matter ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... young empress than an impecunious doctor's daughter as she floated into the room, to be embraced and complimented by the Lavender Lady and to receive a generous meed of admiration, seasoned with a little gentle banter, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler



Words linked to "Banter" :   twit, tantalize, cod, badinage, bait, rag, razz, repartee, taunt, tease, persiflage, ride, rally, tantalise



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