gaiety

English

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] French gaieté, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] French gai

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡeɪ.ə.ti/, /ˈɡeɪ.ɪ.ti/
• Hyphenation: gai‧e‧ty
• Rhymes: -eɪɪti

Noun

gaiety (countable and uncountable, plural gaieties)

1. (dated, uncountable) The state of being happy or merry.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess‎^[1]:

     Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.

   There was much gaiety at the ball.

   The decorations added greatly to the gaiety of the room.

2. (dated, countable) Merrymaking or festivity.
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

     And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin, French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages besides […]

Synonyms

• (state of being happy): gayness

Translations

state of being happy

• Bulgarian: веселост (bg) f (veselost)
• Danish: munterhed c
• Finnish: iloisuus (fi), ilo (fi)
• Georgian: მხიარულება (mxiaruleba), სიმხიარულე (simxiarule)
• German: Frohsinn (de) n
• Italian: gaiezza (it) f
• Japanese: ハピネス (hapinesu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: hiwa
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: munterhet (no) m or f

• Persian: شادمانی (fa) (šâdmâni)
• Spanish: felicidad (es) f, alegría (es)