drollery

plural drolleries · alternative drolerie

1. countableuncountableComical quality.

   You might be impressed by the simultaneous appearance of "Cardeans", "Clans" and North British Atlantics, or engaged by the drolleries of the three shunting engines, one from each company.

   1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 1

   1 more example

   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.

   1915, W.S. Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 121

2. countableuncountableAmusing behavior.
3. countableuncountableSomething humorous, funny or comical.

   "I'm pregnant." "No drolleries this morning please." "Three months."

   1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), page 252

4. archaiccountableuncountableA puppet show; a comic play or entertainment; a comic picture; a caricature.

   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.

   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

5. countableuncountableA joke; a funny story.
6. countableuncountableA small decorative image in the margin of an illuminated manuscript.