jeu d'esprit

American  

[zhœ des-pree] / ʒœ dɛsˈpri /

noun

French.

plural

jeux d'esprit

1. a witticism.

2. a literary work showing keen wit or intelligence rather than profundity.

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jeu d'esprit British  

/ ʒø dɛspri /

noun

1. a light-hearted display of wit or cleverness, esp in literature

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Etymology

Origin of jeu d'esprit

Literally, “play of spirit”

Example Sentences

After a 10-year absence, Mr. Angell resumed his annual rhyming jeu d’esprit in 2008:

From Washington Post • May 20, 2022

In addition, science fiction grandmaster Robert Silverberg describes how “F&SF” got its start and Paul Di Filippo offers a scholarly jeu d’esprit about a long-lost collaboration between Jules Verne and H.G.

From Washington Post • Oct. 2, 2019

Ratmansky’s Violente keeps her arms closer to her chest, and deploys them more softly, so that the pointing becomes a sort of jeu d’esprit.

From The New Yorker • Jun. 8, 2015

His photograph, although a jeu d’esprit, exudes a whiff of melancholy because like all photographs it’s a reminder, with that shadow, of something gone except in the picture and our recollections of it.

From New York Times • Oct. 5, 2010

It is merely a fact of common knowledge put into the form of a misleading jeu d'esprit, though one has a natural reluctance in so describing a time-honoured saying.

From Art Principles With Special Reference to Painting Together with Notes on the Illusions Produced by the Painter by Govett, Ernest