Meanings
comparative more joviall · superlative most joviall
- obsoleteObsolete spelling of jovial.
A melancholy boddy is not the kindeſt nurſe for a chearely minde, (the joviall complexion is ſoverainly beholding to nature,) [...]
1593, Gabriell Haruey [i.e., Gabriel Harvey], Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. […] (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London]: [s.n.], [1870], →OCLC, page 1611 more example
The moſt ſecure, happy, Ioviall & merry in the worlds eſteeme, are Princes & great men, free from melancholy, but for their cares, miſeries, ſuſpicions, Iealoſies, diſcontents, folly, & madneſſe, I referre you to Xenophons Tyrannus, where king Hieron diſcourſeth at large with Simonides the Poet, of this ſubject.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Democritvs Ivnior to the Reader”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, page 57
Cite this entry
joviall. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/joviall
“joviall.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/joviall. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “joviall,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/joviall.
Source: joviall on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.