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1984 vocabulary
189 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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persiflage
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synonyms: badinage, raillery ???
► definition
Definition:light banter; chit-chat
► uses
Uses:
nor could I laugh, nor engage in my old-time lightsome persiflage, with the silly superficial chatterings of women, who, underneath all their silliness and softness, were as primitive, direct, and deadly in their pursuit of biological destiny as the monkeys women were before they shed their furry coats and replaced them with the furs of other animals.
Jack London. John Barleycorn
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I summoned Beale after dinner and held a council of war. It was no time for airy persiflage. I said, "Beale, we're in the cart."
P. G. Wodehouse. Love Among the Chickens A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm (1909)
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When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal disease, amputated limbs and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage. ‘This is unavoidable,’ his voice seemed to say; ‘this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth living again.’
George Orwell. 1984 (1949)
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