Persiflage

//ˈpɜː.sɪ.flɑːʒ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Good-natured banter; raillery. countable, uncountable

    "After the third strike he returned to the bench to face the inevitable persiflage from his teammates."

  2. 2
    light teasing wordnet
  3. 3
    Frivolous, lighthearted discussion of a topic. countable, uncountable

    "Polite dinner calls for persiflage rather than in-depth possibly offensive discussion."

Synonyms

All synonyms
banteraphorismapothegmbackchatbadinagebanter

Example

More examples

"After the third strike he returned to the bench to face the inevitable persiflage from his teammates."

Etymology

From French persiflage, from persifler (“to quiz, tease, mock”), from per- + siffler (“to whistle”), from Latin sībilō (“whistle”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.