drollery

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From French drôlerie, from drôle +‎ -erie; equivalent to droll +‎ -ery.

Pronunciation

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Noun

drollery (countable and uncountable, plural drolleries)

  1. Comical quality.
    • 1915, W.S. Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 121:
      He found that Sally had a restrained, but keen, sense of the ridiculous, and she made remarks about the girls or the men who were set over them which amused him by their unexpected drollery.
  2. Amusing behavior.
  3. Something humorous, funny or comical.
  4. (archaic) A puppet show; a comic play or entertainment; a comic picture; a caricature.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 13:
      Sebastian: A liuing Drolerie : now I will beleeue
      That there are Vnicornes : that in Arabia
      There is one Tree, the Phœnix throne, one Phœnix
      At this houre reigning there.
  5. A joke; a funny story.
  6. A small decorative image in the margin of an illuminated manuscript.

Translations

References