Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A comical or whimsical quality.
- noun A comical or whimsical way of acting, talking, or behaving.
- noun The act of joking; clowning.
- noun Something, such as a story, that is comical or whimsical.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The conduct of a droll, buffoon, or wag; something done to raise mirth; sportive tricks; buffoonery; fun.
- noun The character of being droll; comicalness; humor.
- noun Comical action, as in a dramatic representation; something used or done to excite mirth.
- noun A comic picture.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality of being droll; sportive tricks; buffoonery; droll stories; comical gestures or manners.
- noun obsolete, obsolete, obsolete, obsolete Something which serves to raise mirth.
- noun obsolete, obsolete, obsolete A puppet show; also, a puppet.
- noun obsolete A lively or comic picture.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun comical quality.
- noun amusing behaviour.
- noun something humorous, funny or comical.
- noun archaic a puppet show; a comic play or entertainment; a comic picture; a caricature.
- noun a joke; a funny story.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a comic incident or series of incidents
- noun a quaint and amusing jest
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Daumier handled them with a want of ceremony which would have been brutal were it not for the element of science in his work, making them immense and unmistakable in their drollery, or at least in their grotesqueness; for the term drollery suggests gayety, and Daumier is anything but gay.
Picture and Text 1893 Henry James 1879
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Stubbs was a very emphatic little man, but his emphasis only roused the idea of drollery in the minds of those whom he addressed, and rather influenced them towards leniency.
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It is true the fellow told this in a kind of drollery and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means.
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It is true the fellow told this in a kind of drollery and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means.
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From Kirkman's book, which is now highly prized from its rarity, it appears that the "drollery" entitled "The Bouncing Knight, or the Robbers Robbed," is, in truth, a famous adventure of Sir John
A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character Dutton Cook 1856
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There was a kind of drollery about Mrs. Freke, which, with some people, made the odd things she said pass for wit.
Tales and Novels — Volume 03 Maria Edgeworth 1808
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There was a kind of drollery about Mrs Freke, which, with some people, made the odd things she said pass for wit.
Belinda 1801
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It is true the fellow told this in a kind of drollery and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means.
Tour through Eastern Counties of England, 1722 Daniel Defoe 1696
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Govermint; "no less admirable for the political acumen they display than for a caustic drollery, which is enforced with shrewd Yankee humour, and in the singular phraseology current amongst 'Uncle Sam's' kindred.
Impressions of America During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. Tyrone Power 1818
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- Reoites, ia a plaintive, yetSbandyaA kind of drollery, tbe hard caie
The Monthly Review 1780
super-logos commented on the word drollery
as in, viz., the last eight years of the Bush Administration. 2. An inane political joke upon the res publica created by the Party of Lincoln. 3. A tragic period of American history when the US went to war needlessly with lies about weapons of mass destruction, with concomitant tattletale books that reveal the clownish mishaps of that wonderful born-again scion of the Bush Family who cannot pronounce common words like nuclear. 4. A situation in which a man who graduates from Yale with a "C" in his major finds himself, not on Saturday Night Live, but rather, in The White House. 5. The fools surrounding such a fool. 5. The impact upon international alliances and concordances due to the antics of such people, and the subsequent embarrassment felt by millions of right-thinking Americans. 6. The feeling of most Americans when this pathetic White House folds its tents and slips into history come January 2009.
No, that's how you spell r-e-l-i-e-f.
August 14, 2008
whichbe commented on the word drollery
...only to be replaced by another version of something equally or more horrible?
August 14, 2008
hernesheir commented on the word drollery
"...a kind of drollery, alfo, and of farcafm, fomewhat rough and unpolifhed, yet on the whole cheerful and not ill-natured, frequently prefents itfelf." --From the examples (OCR booboo's corrected by mwah).
October 11, 2011