Ripost

Alternative forms

• riposte

Origin

From French riposte, taken from Italian riposta, a derivative of the verb rispondere ("to respond").

Full definition of ripost

Noun

1. (fencing) A thrust given in return after parrying a lunge.
2. A quick and usually witty response to a taunt.
3. An answer or reply, rapidly uttered, in response to a question or problem.
• 1952, Thomas Allnut Brassey, Brasseys Annual: The Armed Forces Year-book, The French government was always apprehensive to the German Government’s ripost to an air offensive.
• 2005, Suellen Diaconoff, Through The Reading Glass, Written as a ripost to Samuel Constant’s short story Le Mari sentimental, in which the husband is driven to despair and ultimately suicide by his carping wife, Mistress Henly begins with an account of the wife’s reading of the Constant story and how as a reader she links the text of imagination to the realities of her own life.

Anagrams

• tripos