badiner

To joke or banter lightly — badiner avec qqn about something trivial. Almost always appears in the negative construction ne pas badiner avec, meaning to treat something as deadly serious, not a laughing matter.

• Ils badinaient gaiement pendant le dîner. — They were bantering cheerfully during dinner.
• On ne badine pas avec la sécurité sur ce chantier. — Safety is not something to joke around with on this site.
• Elle aime badiner avec ses collègues entre deux réunions. — She likes to joke around with her colleagues between meetings.

The fixed expression ne pas badiner avec (not to be trifled with) is far more common than the plain verb badiner on its own — learners who only know the standalone verb often miss this negative idiom entirely.

Often confused with plaisanter.

• expression On ne badine pas avec l'amour — Alfred de Musset's 1834 play, whose title has become a standalone French expression (on ne badine pas avec + noun) used to say that something is too serious to joke about, e.g. on ne badine pas avec la sécurité.