railler

Si vous trouuez bon de railler, gardez vous bien de mordre, & bien plus de dechirer comme un chien.

George Washington's Rules of Civility Conway, M D 1890

Note also, for a connected piece of scholarship, that our English verb to 'rail' does not properly mean to scold, or to abuse noisily; it is from 'railler,' and means to 'rally,' or jest at, which is often a much wickeder thing to do, if the matter be indeed no jest.

Love's Meinie Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds John Ruskin 1859

You might cry out sceptic and railler, as much as you pleased: but having found, in so many other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the sphere of our observation.

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion David Hume 1743

a gladiator is shewn in being able to hit without cutting deep, so is this of our railler, who is rather to tickle than wound.

The Works of Henry Fielding Edited by George Saintsbury in 12 Volumes $p Volume 12 Henry Fielding 1730

[1 "Leur vie se passe a manger, a ire, et a railler les vns des autres, et de tous les peuples qu'ils cognoissent; ils n'ont rien de serieux, sinon par fois l'exterieur, faisans parmy nous les graues et les retenus, mais entr'eux sont de vrais badins, de vrais enfans, qui ne demandent qu'a rire."

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century Francis Parkman 1858