badinage

badinage, persiflage, raillery denote a kind of banter.

Badinage is applied to banter that is playful and delicate, persiflage to banter that is derisive but not cutting, and raillery to banter that is keen and often sarcastic in its ridicule

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love . . . permits itself even gentle mocking and friendly badinage— Ward

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I have the fresh and charming letter she wrote to her husband on the occasion . . . with a trace of gay persiflage of all the old people at Sudbury and their meetinghouse— Ellis

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a company in which you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession— Beresford

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Analogous words: bantering or banter, chaffing, kidding, joshing, jollying (see corresponding verbs at BANTER): *fun, game, jest, sport