jape

plural japes

1. A joke or quip.

   [H]e clapped hand to thigh, and laughed and laughed until the air rang again. "Oho, a jape—a jape indeed!" he roared.

   1920, Jeffery Farnol, The Geste of Duke Jocelyn, Fytte 9

   2 more examples

   “Now I come to think of it, I suppose schooling isn't such a bad idea as long as he can have some japes and tomfoolery with his young cohorts.” “My love, it will be very good for him and very good for us.”

   2022 August 9, Ayo Edebiri & Shana Gohd, “Private School” (5:57 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 4, episode 5, spoken by Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry)

   Alex: Your husband's trying to kill you. / Clara: If this is another of your absurd japes... My husband may have many faults, Dr. Palmer, but a murderer he is not.

   2025, Black Mirror, season 7, episode 3, spoken by Alex Palmer and Clara (Issa Rae and Emma Corrin)

   Synonyms: joke

2. A prank or trick.

   1 more example

   In London or New York in the late 1970s dada meant what it meant in Paris and New York at the end of the First World War: a not-quite-naked prank, a jape clothed in the barest g-string of aesthetic authority, a Bronx cheer in three-part harmony, Tzara's affirmation of the right “to piss and shit in different colors.”

   1989, Greil Marcus, “The Art of Yesterday's Crash”, in Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009

present singular third person japes · participle present japing · participle past japed · past japed

1. intransitiveTo jest; play tricks.

   Now the Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, yet the Soudan longeth not to the Lond of Egypt. And when I say this, I do jape with words, and may hap ye understond me not.

   1886, Andrew Lang, “To Sir John Manndeville”, in Letters to Dead Authors

   Synonyms: joke, joke, jest

2. transitiveTo mock; deride.

   Synonyms: gibe, trick, befool, make fun of, razz, befool, chaff, disparage

3. obsoleteTo have sexual intercourse with.

   Fottere. To jape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupye.

   1598, Florio, Worlde of Wordes

   4 more examples

   Nay, brother, lay hand on him soon; / For he japed my wife, and made me cuckold.

   1510, Hycke Scorner; “Hickscorner”, in Robert Dodsley, William Carew Hazlitt, editors, A Select Collection of Old English Plays, 4th edition, volume 1, London: Reeves and Turner, 1874, page 171

   I jape a wench […] it is better to jape a wenche than to do worce.

   1530, John Palsgrave, L'esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, Paris: Impremierie Nationale, published 1852, page 589

   Thair is ane hundreth heir sittand by / That luiffis geaping als weill as I.

   1540, Sir David Lyndsay, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, lines 323–324; republished in The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, volume 2, 1879, page 23

   Sum gois so gymp in gyis / Or sche war kissit plane, / Sche leir be japit thryis.

   c. 1550, Alexander Scott, Poems, published 1821, page 26

   Synonyms: coitize, go to bed with, sleep with, Formal terms, bed, coit, coitize, dight