From a shortening of earlier quippy, perhaps from Latin quippe, ultimately quid ("what").

• enPR: kwĭp, IPA: /kwɪp/, [kʰw̥ɪp]

quip (plural quips)

1. A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.
   • 1645, John Milton, L'Allegro:

     Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.

   • 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.

• See also Thesaurus:joke

• French: pique
• German: geistreiche Bemerkung, Witz, Witzelei, Stichelei, Erwiderung, Retourkutsche, Spöttelei
• Italian: freddura, battuta, frizzo
• Portuguese: chiste
• Russian: ко́лкость

quip (third-person singular simple present quips, present participle quipping, simple past and past participle quipped)

1. (intransitive) To make a quip.
2. (transitive) To taunt; to treat with quips.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:

     the more he laughs, and does her closely quip

   • 1957, H. E. Bates, Death of a Huntsman:

     He did not really mind being quipped; the city gentlemen made him used to that sort of thing.

• French: blaguer, plaisanter
• German: witzeln
• Russian: язви́ть
• Spanish: ironizar