droll

comparative droller · superlative drollest

1. Oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.

   Very droll, minister.

   1 more example

   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, “Genoa and Its Neighbourhood”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 68

   Synonyms: witty, amusing, bright, diverting, entertaining, humorous, jocose, jocular

plural drolls

1. archaicA 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] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   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 pennies.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: The Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 294

present singular third person drolls · participle present drolling · participle past drolled · past drolled

1. archaicintransitiveTo 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 Alan, drolling with me; [...]

   1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Flight in the Heather: The Heugh of Corrynakeigh”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC, page 205

plural drolls

1. Gullah folkloreThe ghost of a child, especially one who died a painful death.

   And whenever we heard the droll shrieking from down toward Drunken Jack Island they told us the story of Crab Boy.

   2013, Lynn Michelsohn, Crab Boy’s Ghost: Gullah Folktales from Murrells Inlet’s Brookgreen Gardens in the South Carolina Lowcountry, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   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, plat-eyes in the guise of three-legged hogs and two-headed cows, boo-daddies, boo-hags, and drolls. The drolls are supposed to be the spirits of infants who died painful deaths.

   1938, The Ocean Highway: New Brunswick, New Jersey to Jacksonville, Florida, page 204

   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 and Supernatural Beings, page 48

   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 for dread purposes, while drolls were the ghosts of children who had died under mysterious circumstances.

   1949, Chalmers S. Murray, This Our Land: The Story of the Agricultural Society of South Carolina, page 233

   I have heard them sing the songs of their forefathers and tell of Drolls, Boo Daddies, Plat Eyes, and other terrible spirits who came back on this earth at certain times to plague the lives of men.

   1955, Nell S. Graydon, Tales of Edisto

plural Drolls

1. A surname from German.