What it means
Banter is the back and forth of playful teasing between mates, quick witted jabs that land as affection rather than insult. Good banter keeps a group lively, the slagging flying both ways with nobody really hurt. It can tip into bad banter when someone takes it too far, but at its best it is the glue of a good friendship.
Usage examples
"The lads gave him pure banter about his haircut all night, but he gave as good as he got and we were crying laughing."
"The banter on the team coach back from the away match in Galway was relentless, three lads in stitches over a single haircut joke that mutated for the whole two hours of the M6 motorway journey home."
"Office banter at the agency is gold most days, but the new bloke from the merger does not quite get the rhythm yet, so we have all agreed to dial it back until he finds his feet around the kettle area."
Where it comes from
Banter first surfaces in print in late seventeenth-century English, derided by Jonathan Swift in sixteen-ninety as a vulgar word newly fashionable among London wits. Its origin is murky, possibly from the old Scots banter meaning to ridicule lightly, possibly from earlier slang to ban for cursing. Through the eighteen-hundreds it shed its low-life reputation and became respectable middle-class talk for the friendly back-and-forth of teasing. Modern Irish and British usage carries both the affectionate and the cautionary weight, with bad banter now a serious accusation in workplace and school.
Other ways to say it
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