the.com/witticism

means A cleverly phrased remark designed to be both amusing and sharp-witted.

from Coined by the English writer John Dryden in the 1670s, who grafted 'witty' onto the Latin suffix '-icism' (as in 'criticism') — essentially inventing a fancier word for a fancy joke. Dryden complained that English lacked a proper term for clever sayings, so he simply made one, and it stuck.