subs. (old colloquial).—1. A play upon words; a jesting or evasive reply; a retort; and (2) a trifling critic.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1787). Also as verb. = (1) to trifle; to jest; to censure; and (2) to criticise. Variants more or less allied in meaning and usage are conveniently grouped: e.g., QUIB, QUILL, QUIBBLE, QUIDDLE, QUIBLET (also, mod. American: the patter between turns in negro minstrelsy), QUIDLET, QUILLET, QUIBLIN, and QUIDLIN; SIR QUIBBLE QUEERE (QUIBBLER, QUIPPER, or QUIDDLER) = a trifler or SHATTER-BRAIN (q.v.); QUIBBLING (or QUIDDLING) = uncertain, unsteady, or mincing (of gait); QUIDDIFICAL = triflingly.
1420. ANDREW OF WYNTOUN, Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland [LAING (1872)]. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 229. There is the Celtic word QUHYPE (quip = a quick turn or flirt)].
1571. EDWARDS, Damon and Pithias [DODSLEY, Old Plays, 1744), i. 279]. Set up your huffing base, and we will QUIDDLE upon it.
1583. TARLETON, Jests [HALLIWELL (1844) 132]. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 13. The word QUIP gets a new sense, and is used of words.]
1542. UDALL, The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, 139. Diogenes mocking soch QUIDIFICALL trifles, that wer al in the cherubins, said: Sir Plato, your table and your cuppe I see very well, but as for your tabletee, & your cupitee, I see none soche.
1587. NASHE, Greene’s Menaphon, Int. And here … some desperate QUIPPER will canuaze my proposed comparison.
1591. J. LYLY, Alexander and Campaspe [DODSLEY, Old Plays (REED), ii. 13]. Why, what’s a QUIP? We great girders call it a short saying of a sharp wit, with a bitter sense in a sweet word.
d. 1592. GREENE [Harleian Miscellany. viii. 383]. Are you pleasant or peevish that you QUIP with such briefe girdes.
1594. SHAKESPEARE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, iv. 3. “Oh, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some QUILLETS, how to cheat the devil.” Ibid. (1595), Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 3. Her sudden QUIPS, the least whereof would quell a lover’s hopes. Ibid. (1600), As You Like It, v. 4. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word, he cut it to please himself. This is called the QUIP modest.
1596. SPENSER, The Fairie Queene, VI. vii. 44. The more he laughs, and does her closely QUIP.
1605. JONSON, CHAPMAN, &c., Eastward Ho, iii. 2. Quicksilver. Go to, old QUIPPER; forth with thy speech. Ibid. ’Tis a trick rampant; ’tis a very QUIBLIN.
1609. The Man in the Moone, sig. cii. A thing repugnant to philosophy, and working miraculous matters, a QUILLIT above nature.
1611. L. BARRY, Ram Alley [DODSLEY, Old Plays (REED), v. 427]. Boutcher. Nay, good sir Throate, forbear your QUILLETS now.
1633. FLETCHER, The Woman’s Prize, iv. 1.
| Let her leave her bobs | |
| (I have had too many of them) and her QUILLETS, | |
| She is as nimble that way as an eel. |
1637. MILTON, L’Allegro, 27. QUIPS and cranks and wanton wiles.
1656. T. GOFFE, The Careless Shepherdess, Prel.
| His part has all the wit, | |
| For none speakes, carps, and QUIBBLES beside him. |
1705. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, I. vii. 6. Such frothy QUIBBLES and cunnunders.
1805. A. SCOTT, Poems, 65.
| —The Dutch hae taken Hollan’. | |
| The other, dark anent the QUIB, | |
| Cry’d, O sic doolfu’ sonnets! |
1856. EMERSON, English Traits, vi. The Englishman is very petulant and precise about his accommodation at inns, and on the roads; a QUIDDLE about his toast and his chop.
1829. MACAULAY, Mill on Government. QUIBBLING about self-interest and motives … is but a poor employment for a grown man.
