droll
Oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.
Adjective
- Oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.
- Very droll, minister.
- The Theatre of Puppets, or Marionetti—a famous company from Milan—is, without any exception, the drollest exhibition I ever beheld in my life. I never saw anything so exquisitely ridiculous. - 1846, Charles Dickens,...
Synonyms: witty amusing bright diverting droll entertaining humorous jocose jocular piquant quick quick on the draw quick-witted sharp tongue-in-cheek
Origin
From French drôle (“comical, odd, funny”), from drôle (“buffoon”) from Middle French drolle (“a merry fellow, pleasant rascal”) from Old French drolle (“one who lives luxuriously”), from Middle Dutch drol (“fat little man, goblin”), itself from Old Norse troll, from Proto-Germanic *truzlą. Doublet of drôle and troll.
Forms
Derived
Noun archaic
- A funny person; a buffoon, a wag.
- The lieutenant was a droll in his way, Peregrine possessed a great fund of sprightliness and good humour, and Godfrey, among his other qualifications already recited, sung a most excellent song […]. - 1751, [Tobias]...
- Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned...
Forms
Noun Entry 3
- The ghost of a child, especially one who died a painful death.
- HAMILTON’S HILL, 0.4 m., a little elevation, was the starting point for the races, and is known for a wide variety of ghosts including such fearsome creatures as a 10-foot cat that explodes before the beholder’s eyes,...
- Drolls are spirits of young children who died a painful death. They can be heard, the Negroes say, crying piteously at night in deep swamps and deserted marshland. - 1941, South Carolina Folk Tales: Stories of Animals...
- To the typical Negro of the Carolina coast, the night was made fearsome by hordes of spirit beings—the plat-eye, the boo-daddy and boo-hag, the drolls. […] Boo-daddies and boo-hags, were disembodied spirits, released...
Forms
Verb
- To jest, to joke.
- "Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious! But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in black and white?" / "And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of Shaws," says...