Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to tease good-humouredly; thus bants, teasing speech, banterer n.

1669		R. L’Estrange Fables of Aesop LXXVII 76: ’Tis No New Thing for an Innocent Simplicity to be made the Sport of Bantering Drolls, and Buffons.
1676		D’Urfey Madam Fickle V i: Banter him, banter him Toby. ’Tis a conceited old Scarab, and will yield us excellent sport – go play upon him a little.
1687		T. Brown Saints in Uproar n.p.: To banter folks out of their senses [F&H].
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 16 July 19: I wou’d not Banter you by any means.
1709		R. Steele Tatler No. 12 n.p.: Gamesters, banterers, biters are, in their several species, the modern men of wit.
1754		Earl of Chatham Letters to His Nephew IV 24: If they banter your regularity, order, and love study, banter in turn their neglect of them [F&H].
1760		Foote The Minor 56: I must banter the cit.
1845		S. Judd Margaret (1851) II 76: You are good, Margaret, if you do banter me.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 128: Not you; been bantering all the time. They didn’t mean it, and you didn’t mean it.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 15 June 12/2: ‘If you dare to banter me, or come any more of your funniments with me, I’ll serve you as I did your late master’.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 262: He couldn’t hear what the Commander of C5 had to say at the other end of the phone; all he got was Wiseman’s banter about earning his salary the hard way.

2. (US/Irish) as ext., to challenge.

1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 113: ‘Bantered.’ To dare one, to defy them, is to banter.
1906		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 125: banter, v. 1. To challenge. ‘He bantered me, and so I had to do it.’.
1908		L. Doyle Ballygullion (1927) 131: An’ wi’ that off he goes like a shot; for he was afeared I might banther him intil buyin’ betther.
1997		Share Slanguage 13/2: banter Challenge to fight, taunt.