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

Still, there is one difference: Irregulars regard such playful ingenuity as merely an intellectual game, a literal jeu d’esprit.

From Washington Post • Apr. 21, 2023

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

From Washington Post • May 20, 2022

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

There are echoes of “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall,” but the better analogues for this jeu d’esprit, written by Peter Glanz and Juan Iglesias and directed by Mr. Glanz, are Mr. Allen’s comic New Yorker essays.

From New York Times • Aug. 21, 2011

Did not Buckinghamshire produce ‘The Election of the Laureat’—the prototype of Leigh Hunt’s ‘Feast of the Poets,’ and of a still more recent jeu d’esprit by Mr. Robert Buchanan?

From By-ways in Book-land Short Essays on Literary Subjects by Adams, William Davenport