Repartee
Quick, witty reply-and-counter-reply — wit measured by speed as much as by content.
Repartee (from the French repartie, a fencing term meaning a return thrust) is the exchange of swift, clever replies. The unit of repartee is not a single line but a rally: A says something, B turns it back, and the pleasure lies in how fast and how neatly the turn happens.
Because it is reciprocal, repartee cannot be written alone. A collection of one person's best lines is a book of witticisms; repartee only exists when the second speaker uses the first speaker's own words, image, or logic against them.
In fiction, repartee is a characterisation tool. Screwball comedies of the 1930s and playwrights from Congreve to Stoppard used it to show two minds working at the same speed — which is why romantic pairings in those works are established through argument rather than declaration.
Common mistake: writing repartee where both lines come from the same imagination and therefore sound identical. Give each speaker a distinct rhythm and vocabulary, or the rally reads as one person talking to a mirror.
“"If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee." — "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."”
Keep reading the glossary
A quick, sharp reply that turns an opponent's remark back on them.
A considered reply to a remark or argument — longer and more reasoned than a retort.
A quick reply that answers, and ideally reverses, an insult or challenge.
A clever, often spontaneous remark that delivers humour through verbal ingenuity.