badinage

English

WOTD – 10 July 2012

Etymology

Borrowed from French badinage, from the verb badiner (“jest, joke”) from badin (“playful”), from Occitan badar (“gape”). Distantly related to abash.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌbæd.ɪˈnɑːʒ/, /ˌbæd.ɪˈnɑːdʒ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌbɑd.ɪˈnɑʒ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːʒ, -ɑːdʒ
• Hyphenation: bad‧i‧nage

Noun

badinage (countable and uncountable, plural badinages)

1. Playful raillery; banter.
   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Different Opinions”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 282:

     I am persuaded, if all gay badinage were prefaced by an explanation, it would be infinitely better received.

   • 1882, W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe‎^[1], act I:

     Your badinage so airy, / Your manner arbitrary, / Are out of place / When face to face / With an influential Fairy.

   • 1893, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, chapter XIII, in Linda Da Kowalewska, transl., The Jew‎^[2], London: Heinemann, page 254:

     " […] God knows that if you were only safely married to Jacob I would not care how much you saw of Henri; but as you are not, I think these badinages are very ill-timed and take your mind off the principal business."

   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:

     […] take the word 'barnshoot'—a corruption of the Hindustani word bahinchut. A vile and unforgivable insult in India, this word is a piece of gentle badinage in England.

   • 1994, Lawrence G. DiTillio, “Spider in the Web”, in Babylon 5, 13m 19s:

     [Talia:] You'll forgive me if I'm not in the mood for your usual badinage.

   • 2005 October 31, The Times, London:

     "No, this was more a night of bellowed barbed badinage, boisterous BS, outrageous declamations and defiant roars."

   • 2007, Alessandro Bertolotti, Books of Nudes, Abrams, page 92:

     Described at the time as "photographic badinages" the photographs in Die Erotik in der Photographie include one of a nude model stretched out languidly on a bearskin […]

Translations

playful raillery; banter

• Bulgarian: закачки (bg) f pl (zakački)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 打趣 (zh) (dǎqù)

• Czech: škádlení n
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: henek (ku), henektinaz, henekqerf

• Russian: подшу́чивание (ru) n (podšúčivanije)
• Swedish: raljeri (sv) c, munhuggande n

Verb

badinage (third-person singular simple present badinages, present participle badinaging, simple past and past participle badinaged)

1. To engage in badinage or playful banter.

Translations

engage in badinage

• Bulgarian: закачам се (zakačam se)
• French: badiner (fr)
• Russian: подшу́чивать (ru) impf (podšúčivatʹ), подтру́нивать (ru) impf (podtrúnivatʹ)
• Swedish: munhuggas (sv)

French

Etymology

From badin ‎ -age.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.di.naʒ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

badinage m (plural badinages)

1. joke; gag; wind-up
2. (figuratively) a trivial, simple task

Further reading

• “badinage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.