drollery

noun

droll·​ery ˈdrōl-rē How to pronounce drollery (audio)
ˈdrō-lə-
plural drolleries
1
: something that is droll
especially : a comic picture or drawing
2
: the act or an instance of jesting or burlesquing
3
: whimsical humor

Examples of drollery in a Sentence

the film's sophisticated drolleries will elicit smiles and chuckles even upon repeated viewings though generally serious, the novel about a seriously dysfunctional family is not without drollery
Recent Examples on the Web The starry cast runs full force with his nesting-doll plots and deadpan drolleries, the color palette comes saturated in a Pantone riot of blues, pinks and egg-yolk yellows, and the tone flips nimbly from tender to absurd, more Dahl sweetness than arsenic. Leah Greenblatt, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2023 With LuPone’s perversely opportunistic Mrs. Lovett reviewing the prospective cannibalistic menu, his Sweeney perfectly complemented her cockeyed humor with his own savage drollery. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 31 July 2023 Lapine’s book is marvelously inventive, full of elbow-nudging drollery and melancholy rumination. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2023 Initially, Etero seems quite content with their sporadic encounters, which DP Agnesh Pakozdi films, like everything else, with a warm, matter-of-fact drollery that celebrates the congress of older bodies without glamorizing it. Jessica Kiang, Variety, 7 June 2023 But for all the drollery, the performance seems carved in a marble of suffering. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 24 Apr. 2023 But mostly when aiming for drollery, the songwriters overshoot and wind up at operetta. Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2023 Nolan showed me his certificate of induction into the group, a piece of Valléean drollery embossed with big-eyed bald-headed aliens. Chantel Tattoli, Wired, 18 Feb. 2022 This high-concept, low-key exercise in sustained drollery is an anthology of three unrelated stories about small-town French life, framed as features in the eponymous magazine, which is published as a supplement to a Kansas newspaper. Kyle Smith, National Review, 6 Oct. 2021

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'drollery.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1597, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of drollery was in 1597

Dictionary Entries Near drollery

Cite this Entry

“Drollery.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drollery. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on drollery

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!