What's the difference between quip and retort?

Quip


Definition:

  • (n.) A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort; a gibe.
  • (v. t.) To taunt; to treat with quips.
  • (v. i.) To scoff; to use taunts.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It would not be so much "house arrest as manor arrest", he quipped.
  • (2) Richards was a feminist who, rather than scaring men, stung them with her wit, a technique she famously applied to President George Bush senior in what became a legendary quip in American politics.
  • (3) More than anything, I started to feel that I was calling my friends less, seeing my friends less and that our friendships were being reduced to a trickle of pictures, comments and quips.
  • (4) Keates quipped that the only positive thing she could think to say about the education secretary was that he was the union's "new poster boy", citing the surge in recruitment since he took over the department.
  • (5) "Greeks need to unburden their fears," says the comic, the scent of cologne permeating his dressing room after he has danced, sung and quipped his way through another rendition of "Sorry … I'm Greek".
  • (6) How to stop Donald Trump: women may hold the solution Read more If she believes that Trump’s criticism of women is not “gender-specific”, as she said in a CNN interview , can she tell us whether her father would ever quip that a male doctor graduated from “Baywatch Medical School ”?
  • (7) We have a few quotations from a compendium of jokes of the first emperor Augustus (not all brilliant: "When a man was nervously giving him a petition and kept putting his hand out, then drawing it back, the emperor quipped, 'Hey, do you think you're giving a penny to an elephant?'").
  • (8) That prompted a drummer in his studio band to storm off the stage in mock outrage while bandleader Kevin Eubanks quipped: "Jay, you're messing around on me?"
  • (9) 'A modern revolutionary group headed for the television, not for the factory,' quipped the late Abbie Hoffman, one of the great political pranksters of 1968who helped provoke a bloody battle between anti-war protesters and the Chicago police force at the Chicago Democratic convention.
  • (10) "That's Putin for you – just divorced and already looking for new adventures," one Israeli diplomat quipped.
  • (11) There are two things you need to know about David Nicholson, runs the health service quip about the NHS chief executive.
  • (12) We still want your money.” 'The question was stupid': Hungarians on the refugee referendum Read more The quip is a reminder that while this weekend’s referendum in Hungary was born from similar frustrations to the Brexit vote in June, the Hungarian right does not want to leave the EU.
  • (13) The two men, from different political camps, have a polite relationship that has sometimes been barbed and punctuated by stinging Conservative quips about French leftwing tax-and-spend policies .
  • (14) Bill Shorten quip on lettuce leaves the vegetable starring in national debate Read more State government support would be needed to implement that package, but some have already ruled out supporting an increase.
  • (15) quips Andy Daly, a statement that needs no punchline, but he delivers one anyway.
  • (16) Just from looking at Boris Johnson you can tell that British hairdressing is not doing so well,” quipped one.
  • (17) "Young people were born free; soon they may be everywhere in chains," Hands quipped in an oblique reference to academy chains.
  • (18) Pressed on the issue at prime minister's questions, Cameron quipped that Labour had promised to fund the allowance "from savings we've made from our success in reducing debt".
  • (19) He also quipped that one of his female MPs had "sex appeal" and wasn't "just a pretty face".
  • (20) But the validity of the individual measures and the relationship between achievement of QUIP standards and resident quality was not firmly established.

Retort


Definition:

  • (n.) To bend or curve back; as, a retorted line.
  • (n.) To throw back; to reverberate; to reflect.
  • (n.) To return, as an argument, accusation, censure, or incivility; as, to retort the charge of vanity.
  • (v. i.) To return an argument or a charge; to make a severe reply.
  • (v. t.) The return of, or reply to, an argument, charge, censure, incivility, taunt, or witticism; a quick and witty or severe response.
  • (v. t.) A vessel in which substances are subjected to distillation or decomposition by heat. It is made of different forms and materials for different uses, as a bulb of glass with a curved beak to enter a receiver for general chemical operations, or a cylinder or semicylinder of cast iron for the manufacture of gas in gas works.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After I pointed this out, even with all the racist retorts he could muster, being told “he’s got you there mate” by his friends was the knockout that saved the night.
  • (2) I found their remarks a little ripe, if mostly well argued, although Nicholson's characterisation of the characters' default mindset as "Brown people bad, American people good" rather misses the obvious retort: "They wanna kill me, I wanna live."
  • (3) By measuring the solubility of Ni5As2 particles in a variety of aqueous solutions, we have determined that particulate Ni5As2 that might be produced during oil-shale retorting could be mobilized to the environment and made available to the cells of living organisms, including humans.
  • (4) Thus, it is possible that Ni5As2 could be solubilized and mobilized to the environment by the flooding of abandoned in situ retorts with ground water or by the disposal of oil-shale product water by spraying it on spent shale beds.
  • (5) The score should have been tied at 2-2 and the natural German retort that one of Geoff Hurst's goals in the 1966 World Cup was imaginary hardly makes the blunder of officials more palatable in Bloemfontein.
  • (6) In reply, Cameron retorts that the changes are infused with the moral purpose of bringing "new hope and responsibility" to benefits claimants.
  • (7) However, this evidence may have appeared stronger to the City of London police, HMRC and the Crown Prosecution Service when they first brought the charges than it did during the case, coming after revelations of phone-hacking and News Corporation's closure of the News of the World, which allowed Redknapp to continually express scorn and retort that he "did not have to tell the truth" to "that newspaper".
  • (8) "Would all these girls," he asks, with a sorrow that defies any glib, one-should-be-so-lucky retort, "be fucking me if they weren't getting paid?"
  • (9) Clinton shows strength over Trump in one of history's most significant debates Read more “It’s all words, it’s all soundbites,” he retorted after a particularly one-sided exchange, adding that Clinton was a “typical politician: all talk, no action”.
  • (10) The education secretary appeared to suggest that Graham was effectively helping opponents of the taxpayer-funded schools, which are independent of local authorities, to intimidate applicants – prompting Graham to retort that the arguments of Gove's department in resisting public disclosure "clearly failed to convince".
  • (11) Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre , Obvious Child tells the story of Donna, a standup comedian in Brooklyn whose chaotic life is a source of bemusement to her parents, who are unable to believe that their twentysomething daughter doesn’t even know how to do her taxes (“Nobody knows how to do their taxes!” Donna retorts, not wholly incorrectly.)
  • (12) The infant formulas were sterilized either by ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment or by a conventional retort process to give products with low and high levels of MRPs and LAL, respectively.
  • (13) Similarly, Laura Bates's recent article on victim blaming should act as sufficient retort to anyone who thinks police chief KP Raghuvanshi's advice that women should carry chilli powder to prevent rape is symptomatic of a specifically Indian brand of misogyny.
  • (14) Obama, seemingly frustrated with Romney's elusiveness, retorted that it had been his opponent's strategy for 18 months.
  • (15) "That's an insult, Mr Black, that's an insult," Redknapp retorted.
  • (16) The bride retorts: “I’m the one who paid the quoted price.
  • (17) Carly Fiorina expertly defuses Trump on 'beautiful face' retort and foreign policy Read more The New York real estate mogul went out off his way to bash Carly Fiorina , the former Hewlett Packard CEO and GOP presidential rival with whom he sparred in Wednesday’s debate.
  • (18) Mailer punched Vidal at a party, prompting Vidal to retort: "Words fail Norman again."
  • (19) "Because the lawyer said it's legal," Bush retorted.
  • (20) The testicles were retorted at various intervals up to 24 hours.