Etymology Dictionary

BANTER,  to mock or jeer at; mockery.  (F.?)   'When wit hath any mixture of raillery, it is but calling it banter, and the work is done.   This polite word of theirs was first borrowed from the bullies in White Friars, then fell among the footmen, and at last retired to the pedants; but if this bantering, as they call it, be so despicable a thing,' &c.; Swift, Tale of a Tub; Author's Apology.   Banterer occurs A.D. 1709, in the Tatler, no 12.   Origin unknown; apparently slang.   ¶ The etymology from F. badiner is incredible.   Rather I would suppose it to have been a mere corruption of bandy, a term used in tennis, and so easily transferred to street talk and slang.   Cf. F. bander, to bandy, at tennis; Cotgrave adds:  'Jouer à bander et à racler contre, to bandy against, at tennis; and by metaphor, to pursue with all insolence, rigour, extremity.'   See Bandy. [†]

ADDENDA

'Occasions given to all men to talk what they please, especially the banterers of Oxford (a set of scholars so called, some M.A.), who make it their employment to talk at a venture, lye, and prate what nonsense they please;' A. Wood, Life, Sept. 6, 1678 (Davies).   Explained by 'to jest or jeer' in Phillips, ed. 1706.