Definition of "badinage"

I am persuaded, if all gay badinage were prefaced by an explanation, it would be infinitely better received.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Different Opinions”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 282

Your badinage so airy, / Your manner arbitrary, / Are out of place / When face to face / With an influential Fairy.

1882, W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe‎, act I

" […] God knows that if you were only safely married to Jacob I would not care how much you saw of Henri; but as you are not, I think these badinages are very ill-timed and take your mind off the principal business."

1893, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, chapter XIII, in Linda Da Kowalewska, transl., The Jew‎, London: Heinemann, page 254

[…] take the word 'barnshoot'—a corruption of the Hindustani word bahinchut. A vile and unforgivable insult in India, this word is a piece of gentle badinage in England.

1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […]

[Talia:] You'll forgive me if I'm not in the mood for your usual badinage.

1994, Lawrence G. DiTillio, “Spider in the Web”, in Babylon 5, 13m 19s

"No, this was more a night of bellowed barbed badinage, boisterous BS, outrageous declamations and defiant roars."

2005 October 31, The Times, London

Described at the time as "photographic badinages" the photographs in Die Erotik in der Photographie include one of a nude model stretched out languidly on a bearskin […]

2007, Alessandro Bertolotti, Books of Nudes, Abrams, page 92