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Jocular   /dʒˈɑkjələr/   Listen
Jocular

adjective
1.
Characterized by jokes and good humor.  Synonyms: jesting, jocose, joking.



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"Jocular" Quotes from Famous Books



... later the dormitory bell sounded, and he could hear the scuffling of feet on the lobby outside, and the clamour of voices as boys hustled one another in front of the boards. Evidently the majority regarded the announcement in a jocular manner; and when a distant shout of laughter came up from the passage below, and down from the landing above, it was clear that Forders did not take the matter ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... But when they did so, which was in a short time, it was for us to clear away, with orders at the same time to keep the remainder of the beef for ourselves; so we removed our dinner traps, passing a good many remarks in a jocular spirit on our green pasture, wet cloth, and our scientific dishes, plates, knives, and forks, much to the amusement of the colonel and captain who were looking on, and then sat down to our own supper, which we very much needed. I remember remarking ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... willingness to go. Four horses were speedily harnessed, a child's sledge belonging to the landlord produced, a wheel and some levers placed thereon, and then the little caravan set off in the direction of the bridge, pursued by the jocular approbation of the soldiers, and accompanied by some of the officers, who showed as much interest in the expedition as comported ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... gazing intently at the corpse, and trying to form some theory of the reason for the murder, certain old stories he had heard of Sir Horace Fewbanks's private life and character recurred to him. These rumours had not been much—a jocular hint or two among his fellows at Scotland Yard that His Honour had a weakness for a pretty face and in private life led a less decorous existence than a judge ought to do. Rolfe wondered how much or how little truth was contained in these stories. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... the national capital that Mr. Evarts, when Secretary of State, on one occasion, in a jocular crowd of his friends, was desired to condense into prose these immortal verses. Urgently solicited, Mr. Evarts ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... lower invaded a higher element. But reverse the hypothesis. Conceive that Zeus, or Baiame, was originally, not a Father and guardian, but a lewd and tricky ghost of a medicine-man, a dancer of indecent dances, a wooer of other men's wives, a shape-shifter, a burlesque droll, a more jocular bugbear, like Twanyirika. By what means did he come to be accredited later with his loftiest attributes, and with regard for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... wonder if you know the TERRIBLE SMILE? [The young fellow whom they call John winked very hard, and made a jocular remark, the sense of which seemed to depend on some double meaning of the word SMILE. The company was curious ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... figure-head—there was assembled a group of seamen, among whom were Tyrker the Turk, one of Thorward's men named Swend, who was very stout and heavy, and one of Karlsefin's men called Krake, who was a wild jocular man with a peculiar twang in his speech, the result of having been long a prisoner in Ireland. We mention these men particularly, because it was they who took the chief part in conversations and in story-telling. The two Scots were also there, but they ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... was a look that came into Dingan's face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of men who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular about her. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... simply because the style had become customary. One of the most charming little groups of figures in ivory is in the Louvre, the Coronation of the Virgin. The two central figures are flanked by delightful jocular little angels, who have that characteristic close-lipped, cat-like smile, which is a regular feature in all French sculpture of the Gothic type. In a little triptych of the fourteenth century, now in London, there is the rather unusual scene of Joseph, sitting opposite the Virgin, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... talked to them calmly in his usual quiet, jocular manner, and told the Afghans how, by behaving in this fashion, while under his protection, they were doing him harm in the eyes of the Persians in whose country they were guests, and that if they had any claim they must apply to him and not take the law into their own hands. With his keen ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... presently fell upon Sheffield. "I defy you," he said, with an attempt to be jocular, "to prove what you have been hinting; it is a great shame. It's so easy to speak against men, to call them injudicious, extravagant, and so on. You ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... had gradually, and with a kind of jocular moroseness, crept into their intercourse. The exciting thing about it was the silent reservation felt by both: We know how different things could be, so soon as we desired. To-day, for the first time, this game at renunciation seemed to ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... a clergyman, about forty years of age, who was rather a weak man, happened to be drinking wine in jocular company, and by accident swallowed a part of the seal of a letter, which he had just then received; one of his companions seeing him alarmed, cried out in humour, "It will seal your bowels up." He became melancholy from that instant, and in a day or two refused to swallow any ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... company was as jolly as numerous, composed of officers going back to join their regiments, ladies from the Marseilles Alcazar Music Hall, strolling-players, a rich Mussulman returning from Mecca, and a very jocular Montenegrin prince, who favoured them with imitations of the low comedians of Paris. Not one of these jokers felt the sea-sickness, and their time was passed in quaffing champagne with the steamer captain, a good ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... a smile, and with a 'how d'ye do, Cutaway?' and in my excitement at the prospect of receiving the $80, which I then wanted the worst kind, I shook hands with him, asked how his family was, and got as familiar and jocular with him as though he was the most cherished friend I had in the world! Well, now what do you suppose was the result of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... Being conversational, and in a reasonable flow of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the door: remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, as to the heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... crowd gathered around the terrified Chinaman and his captors, and he was plied with questions, some of a jocular character, by the miners, who were glad of anything that relieved the monotony of their ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... finding itself short of provisions had come up to the section house and had requested Mrs. McDonald to prepare for them a meal. While they were dining, one of the brakemen caused Mrs. McDonald to fall into a dead faint when he in a rough but jocular way remarked to her: "I bet you, Mrs. McDonald, that your Joe and Jim are having the time of their lives down in Minneapolis, as I haven't seen them around the reservation since the night I found them hoboing my train into Grand Forks, although our train has passed through here many ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... words may be observed as marks of Mr. Boswell's accuracy. It is a jocular Irish phrase, which, of all Johnson's acquaintances, no one probably, but ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... said he, "the judges put a question to ——, however subtle and dangerous it may be, and though he evidently cannot in the least degree perceive the drift of it, before the words are out of their mouths, he, as it were, thrusts them down again with a confident good-humoured volubility, a kind of jocular recklessness of law and logic, which often makes one wonder whether the judges are more inclined to be angry or amused; nay, I have once or twice seen one of them lean back and laugh outright, poor —— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... never failed in consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw that he kept for the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancy of men. She made no complaints, but her ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... heart-strings. He invited her to the Poultry at "any hour of the day—and the sooner the better;" but was clear that she could not visit Great Cumberland Place without writing to Mamma. "Doing the civil" was his jocular way of putting it—one of Papa's little ways when he meant more. She knew that he was right, and postponed the fond man and his injunction. His love might be taken for granted by a favourite child. Just now it was her sisters' ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... on his entrance the President accosted our member of Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. He then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing everybody's hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the individual's name was announced to him or not. His manner towards ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... was chairman, and he had called the meeting to order before Douglas arrived. He was making a few opening remarks, and was in an excellent frame of mind, and inclined to be somewhat jocular. He realised the importance of having an archdeacon present, and referred to it several times. To Douglas, he seemed most ridiculous as he stood there endeavouring to be as pompous as possible that all might be ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... from milk from which only a given amount of cream has been removed, while in other instances the minimum amount of butter fat which full cream cheese may contain is prescribed. The wide variation in the amount of butter fat carried by cream has caused much jocular comment and some serious discussion as to what ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... Christian was by no means satisfied of his innocence, and he decided to discover by guile the secret which all other means had failed to reveal. He would, if possible, make his steward his own betrayer. One day, at a Court banquet, he turned in jocular mood to the minister and said, "Tell me now, my dear Torbern, was there really any truth in what Faaborg told me of your relations with my beautiful Lady! Don't hesitate to tell the truth, which only you know, for I assure you no harm shall come to ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... from the spinet, to allow Christina to pass him without climbing. Miss Sophia and Grizel had the doctor between them, and there was also a bachelor, but an older one, for Elspeth. Mr. McLean, as stout and humoursome as of yore, had solemnly promised his wife to be jocular but not too jocular. Neither minister could complain, for if Mr. Dishart had been asked to say grace, Mr. Gloag knew that he was to be called on for the benediction. Christina, obeying strict orders, glided round the table leisurely, as if she were not in the least excited, though she could be ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... of the "Clarion" was being quietly but persistently beset by another sermonizer, less cocksure of text than the Sweet Singer of Policy, but more subtle in influence. This was Miss Esme Elliot. Already, the half-jocular partnership undertaken at the outset of their acquaintance had developed into a real, if somewhat indeterminate connection. Esme found her new acquaintance interesting both for himself and for his career. Her set in general considered the ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... was it given to any of the Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers of Mr Cruickshank's citation to boast at the tribal dog-feasts of the future, of the occasion on which they had bested "de boss." Neither was any further part in public affairs, except by way of jocular reference, assigned to Finnigan's cat. The proceedings of the court abruptly terminated, the judges reported the desirability of a second contest, and the public accepted with a wink. The wink in any form was hateful to Lorne Murchison, but he had ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... following morning my old uncle, without asking any direct questions, had soon drawn from me a full account of the hour I had spent in the Baroness's society, and I was not a little abashed when the smile vanished from his lips and the jocular note from his words, and he grew serious all at once, saying, "Cousin, I beg you will resist this folly which is taking such a powerful hold upon you. Let me tell you that your present conduct, as harmless ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... for the few days I was at school, the cowardly mean-spirited fellows would laugh if ever our schoolmaster made a joke. It was the same in the regiment whenever the bully of a sergeant was disposed to be jocular—not a recruit but was on the broad grin. Well, a wise and determined husband will get his wife into this condition of discipline; and I brought my high-born wife to kiss my hand, to pull off my boots, to fetch and carry for me like a servant, and always to make it a holiday, too, when I was in ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Pensioner with one leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the Greenwich Pensioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea Pensioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his friend's sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs. Mitts ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... the light in tumultuous masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the banks, the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow-path with a 'C'est vite, ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the fugitive slave bill, and of preventing, as far as possible, all noble thought which opposes the establishment of Despotism, now so rapidly encroaching upon our once Free Soil: they hold by this Petty Serjeantry—a menial service not mentioned in any book even of "Jocular Tenures." ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... "choke-full" to the very attics—all save the "oaken chamber," which, as the lieutenant expressed a most magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith appropriated to his particular accommodation. Mr. Maguire meanwhile was fain to share the apartment of Oliver Dobbs, the squire's own man; a jocular proposal of joint occupancy having been first indignantly rejected by "Mademoiselle," though preferred with the "laste taste in life" of Mr. Barney's ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... jocular bravado, the younger sister leads the way out. Arm-in-arm the two cross the patio, then the outer courtyard, and on through a narrow passage communicating with the walled enclosure at back; once a grand garden under careful cultivation, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... had hidden Mr. Jones's hat; so papa said that he must stay, and invited him to a pipe and a chat. Papa had the pipe and gave Jones the chat, and still he stayed. Every moment he meant to take the plunge, but couldn't. Then papa began to get very tired of Jones, and fidgeted and finally said, with jocular irony, that Jones had better stay all night, they could give him a shake-down. Jones mistook his meaning and thanked him with tears in his eyes, and papa put Jones to bed in the spare room and cursed ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... some friends on the confines of the county of Salop, bordering on Herefordshire, I took the opportunity long cherished of visiting the spot where lie the remains of the author of Boscobel; Fragmenta Antiquitatis, or Ancient Tenures of Land, and Jocular Customs of Manors, &c., and copied the following inscription from his monument, in the chancel of the ancient church of Orleton in the latter county. I believe it has never been published; and although neither Note nor Query is connected with it, it may serve to fill ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... great measure to the cheerfulness of his nature. He was, indeed, a most happy-minded man. It will be remembered that, when a boy, he had been known in his valley as "Laughing Tam." The same disposition continued to characterise him in his old age. He was playful and jocular, and rejoiced in the society of children and young people, especially when well-informed and modest. But when they pretended to acquirements they did not possess, he was quick to detect and see through them. One day a youth expatiated to him ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... during which every shilling had been scrupulously devoted to accumulation, had quite doubled the original amount. So far from being penniless, therefore, Maud's fortune was often alluded to by the captain, in a jocular way, as if purposely to remind her that she had the means of independence, and duties connected with it. It is true, Maud, herself, had no suspicion that she had been educated altogether by her "father," and that her own money had not been used for this purpose. To own ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... dislike to tobacco was well known, and she answered in the same jocular tone: "Do you not think that a mattress stuffed with these leaves would be ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... joyous voice at the deaf old lady, prefacing each extract by the warning shout, "Solomon says!" She had the trick of firing off Solomon's utterances also upon strangers, astonishing them easily by the unfamiliar text and the unexpectedly jocular vein of these quotations. On the day the new curate called for the first time at the cottage, she found occasion to remark, "As Solomon says: 'the engineers that go down to the sea in ships behold the wonders of sailor nature';" ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... soon called again, tricked out from head to foot in the latest fashion. She was a little flurried on entering a room full of jocular clerks. Escorted by Massinot, both of them with their eyes fixed on the ground, she reached my office. I closed the door after ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... that Master Jeffreys handed to Dorothy was too large and too heavy for a mere missive; and the maid, recalling some jocular promises of Raleigh's, at once suspected that some London gew-gaw lay snug within, and tore off the wrappings with eager fingers. Her hopes were not disappointed, and a dainty pair of silver shoebuckles ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... jocular announcement, and that evening all the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in the post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from the up-country trail, came and warmed himself, ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... with all his might, The little pig laughed outright, Giving a jocular, scornful shout With his saucy snout, As he cried, "O, how would you like to learn 'Twas a churn, and that I was in ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... letter again, you will probably have discovered what was the meaning of my jocular complaint—"You answer me much too pathetically and seriously." You must have seen by the exact terms of my letter, somewhat loosely worded though it was, that by your answer I meant the manner in which you speak of my conduct towards D. with regard to "Rienzi." As this part of my letter has ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... only in his most happy and resplendent moods that the Archdeacon held jocular conversations with his daughter. These conversations had been, in the past, moments of agony and terror to her, but since that morning when she had suddenly woken to a realisation of the marvellous possibilities in life her terror had left her. There were other people ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... mysteries," Mr. Blake was beginning in a jocular way, when the serious look on the boy's face checked him. "What is it? What has happened, Merritt?" he asked soberly, while Rob regarded the spectacle of his usually placid corporal's excitement with ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... by the term jocular and comick, is nothing but a turn of expression, an airy phantom, that must be caught at a particular point. As we lose this point, we lose the jocularity, and find nothing but dulness in its place. A lucky sally, which has filled a company with laughter, will have no effect ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... gently smoothed down her golden hair. Just as the foremost pursuer came within fifteen yards or so of them, he said, "Farewell, my lassie, I leave you in good hands"; and then, waving his cap in the air, with a cheer of more than half-jocular defiance, he turned and fled towards Arbroath as if one of the nor'-east gales, in its wildest fury, were sweeping him over ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... the rejoicings of the North when General Lee surrendered. In our country home we had lived in an actual condition of camp life so long that at its conclusion I remarked to my husband in a jocular vein that I was prepared for a life with the Comanches! We restored our damaged fences, dug up our silver which had been buried many months under a tree in the garden, and Mr. Gouverneur began to turn his attention to agriculture. Our farm was among ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... mug of coffee into his boot drying at the fire,—a boot henceforth saccharine. A mule, slipping his halter, steps forward unnoticed, puts his nose into the circle, and brays resonant. These are the jocular boons of life, and at these the woodsmen guffaw with lusty good-nature. Coarse and rude the jokes may be, but not nasty, like the innuendoes of pseudo-refined cockneys. If the woodsmen are guilty of uncleanly wit, it differs from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... assure you, upon my honour, that she shall be safe and inviolate; and I hope you don't doubt me, notwithstanding any airs she may have given herself, upon my jocular pleasantry to her, and perhaps a little innocent romping with her, so usual with young folks of the two sexes, when they have been long acquainted, and grown up together; for pride ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... no further steps in the matter. I have been asked questions that should not have been asked." In saying this he had used a tone which prevented further conversation on the subject, but Lizzie, as she thought of it all, remembered his jocular remark, made in the railway carriage, as to the suspicion which had already been expressed on the matter in regard to himself. If he had been the perpetrator, and had then found that he had only stolen the box, how wonderful ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... the light of the most lovely of spring mornings. Insensibly the gloom of the mind departed with the gloom of night. Conversation commenced. The mournful past was forgotten in anticipation of the bright future. Some jocular remark of the young king's sister elicited a general burst of laughter, when, by common consent, they wiped away their tears, banished all funereal looks, and, a merry party, rode merrily along, over hill and dale, to a crown and a throne. Little did they dream that these ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... whom, when I had begun to like him out of admiration I admired more, contrary to what usually happens, the more thoroughly I knew him. For I did know him thoroughly; he kept nothing hid from me, neither jocular nor serious, neither sad nor glad. I was quite a young man: but already he held me in honour and I will dare to say respect—as if I were his contemporary. He gave me his vote and interest in my standings for honours; he, when I entered upon them, was my introducer and companion; ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... His jocular tone did not hide his deep earnestness. Never had Lenore felt him so forceful. His ruggedness seemed to steady her nerves that again began to fly. Anderson took her into his office, closed the door, threw down ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... a great place for brides and grooms this summer," remarked the captain in his frank and jocular way. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... just such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to overhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was so surprised and confounded, that we could scarcely get a word from ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... harp on Mr. Shaw's errors. It is much more necessary that we should recognize that, amid all his falsifications, doctrinal and jocular, he has a genuine comic sense of character. "Most French critics," M. Hamon tells us ... "declare that Bernard Shaw does depict characters. M. Remy de Gourmont writes: 'Moliere has never drawn a doctor more comically "the doctor" than Paramore, ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... wrecked. It turned out that the dictionary he had used (Arnold's, we think,)—a work of a hundred years back, and, from mere ignorance, giving slang translations from Tom Brown, L'Estrange, and other jocular writers—had put down the verb sterben (to die) with the following worshipful series of equivalents—1. To kick the bucket; 2. To cut one's stick; 3. To go to kingdom come; 4. To hop ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... enthusiastic Irishmen; Murtagh received them with great apparent cordiality, and entered into a long discourse with them, promising them the assistance of himself and order, and received from them a profusion of thanks. After a time Murtagh, observing, in a jocular tone, that consulting was dull work, proposed a game of cards, and the leaders, though somewhat surprised, he went to a closet, and taking out a pack of cards, laid it upon the table; it was a strange dirty pack, and exhibited every mark of having seen some very long service. On one of his ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... Court. The appearance of this dock was recognized by all to be ominous, but some relief from the feeling of foreboding was experienced when Judge Gregorowski after taking his seat was observed to smile several times and to make some jocular remark to one of the officials of the Court. The faces of the officials however damped any hopes that were built upon the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... under its stone and its moss, whilst the tree was reflected into the stream, and the Brawl went rolling by. There was not much in the letters certainly; in the pink notes scarcely anything—merely a little word or two, half jocular, half sympathetic, such as might be written by any young lady. But oh, you silly Pendennis, if you wanted this one, why did you not speak? Perhaps neither party was in earnest. You were only playing at being in love, and the sportive ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his eyelids, said, "But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I cannot treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... The man would be an opinionated politician, heavily jocular about The Bride. But at the entrance of Guy Pollock she discovered a personality. Pollock was a man of perhaps thirty-eight, slender, still, deferential. His voice was low. "It was very good of you ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... this yer a d—-d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... smiled to myself as I trudged upward. We came off the steep place, leaving the canyon beneath us, and took to horseback. And as we proceeded over the final gentle slant up to the rim of the great basin that was set among the peaks, the Virginian was jocular once more. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... to give them a dinner of the three orthodox courses— fish, flesh, and fowl—was only meant in a jocular sense. For the flesh, their stock of charqui is not drawn upon; and as to fowl, the soldier-crane would be a still more unpalatable morsel. So it results in their dining simply upon fish; this not only without sauce, but ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... as I had time to oberve in the first hasty glance. Astonished at his actions, though not at all alarmed—or the first thought that occurred to me as that he was trying to catch a young rabbit—I called out in a half-jocular tone, well, bubby boy, what is it?' He made no reply, but continued that strange murmur of '—Oh-h-h, Pa-a-a, loo-oo-ook,' and took a couple of paces forward, not as though he wished to advance, but more in the style of a person who has leaned too far forward and moves his feet ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... it was plain to see that he was fidgety. He had put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal, and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock. But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his power to turn this ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... life, his air became abstracted and restless; but if, by chance, the Revolution and the country were the topic, his whole system seemed altered—all his faculties were concentrated: he would listen for a great length of time, without speaking, and then would break silence by some light and jocular remark, that was too much at variance with his former manner, not to be affectation. But of the war, and of his father, he seldom spoke and always from some very ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... codex. Here it will be necessary to explain that caudex, codex, in Latin, meant a block of wood, and had its humorous by-senses among the Roman dramatists, as the word block has among ourselves, such as blockhead.[5] So caudicalis provincia was a jocular expression for the ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... never was told that this jocular feature Of mine was a trick reprehensibly rude, And yet I was sold, like a commonplace creature, To work in a ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl

... De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... easier without boots," said Captain Tushin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was unacceptable and had not come off. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... he, with a jocular simulation of disquiet. "You should not have told me that, till I had finished my cup. Now I shall feel that I am sharing a dissipation ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... interview with Mr. Lincoln, I also explained to him my extreme desire to serve in a subordinate capacity, and in no event to be left in a superior command. He promised me this with promptness, making the jocular remark that his chief trouble was to find places for the too many generals who wanted to be at the head of affairs, to command ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines. Menippus of Gadara, the originator of this style of composition, lived about 280 B.C.; he interspersed jocular and commonplace topics with moral maxims and philosophical doctrines, and may have added contemporary pictures, though this ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... in village churchyards. The gratitude felt by both rector and people for many years of faithful service is thus set forth, sometimes couched in homely verse, and occasionally marred by the misplaced humour and jocular expressions and puns with which our forefathers thought fit to honour the dead. In this they were not original, and but followed the example of the Greeks and Romans, the Italians, Spaniards, and French. ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... her very unkind, but showed no desire to revert to the topic upon which they had been conversing, when she had thought fit to ask her that jocular question which Phyllis ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... been invited by Lord R. to dine after the play,—an arrangement which, from its novelty, delighted Lord Byron exceedingly. The dinner, however, afterwards dwindled into a mere supper, and this change was long a subject of jocular resentment ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the way things were with him when, on a gray December afternoon, the day before Christmas, the Hydrographer, just arrived from Providence, slid against her pier in Jersey City, and the crew with jocular shouts made the hawsers fast to the bitts. Some months before, the Hydrographer had stumbled across a lumber-laden schooner, abandoned in good condition off Fire Island, and had towed her into ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... evidence ocular. A heart of one chamber they call unilocular, And in a sharp frost, or when snow-flakes fall floccular, Your wise man of old wrapp'd himself in a Roquelaure, Which was called a Wrap-rascal when folks would be jocular. And shell-fish, the small, Periwinkle and Cockle are, So with them will I finish these ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... obtain a divorce," said the budding barrister, in a jocular tone. "I am afraid we can't manage that ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger

... looked a little startled, and his lips formed into a whistle of astonishment, which Nettie's resolute little face kept inaudible. "Taken your fancy very much, eh, Miss Nettie?" said the jocular savage, who fancied raillery of one kind or other the proper style of conversation to address to a young lady. Nettie gave that big hero a flashing sudden glance which silenced him. Mr Chatham once more formed an inaudible whew! with his lips, and looked ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... was joined by McLagan. The Irishman had seen the cattle come in, and was anxious to learn the particulars. His manner, after his recent ill-humor, was almost jocular. He realized that these were cattle ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... hunter, as the logmen turned off to the slash; "a merry morning to you, neighbor Elwood. This looks some like business to-day. You were not expecting us a very great sight earlier than this, I conclude," he added, with a jocular smile. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... was very jocular, and sometimes very unfair; but his jocoseness was usually so distinct from mere flippant derisiveness, and his unfairness was redeemed by such delicacy of wit and courtesy of manner, that his most malicious jeux d'esprit seldom raised ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... always has at command smiles for satire, simpers for repartee, sniggers for conundrums, titters for puns, and guffaws for jocular anecdotes. By Mr. T.C.'s system, cues for laughter are rendered unnecessary, as, from a long course of practical experience, the moment of cachinnation is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... suddenly discharging his Bowery laugh, "did you tell 'em how HE was dressed?" He pointed a jocular finger at me. "That WUD 'a' made ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... dollars, also promised to render me all his assistance and influence with the Sheikhs, and to be my wakeel (agent) in my absence. Jabour paid me a farewell visit, and after he received his present was very polite and jocular. Yusuf Moknee, as a Tripoline, also paid him six reals; for he is the official protector of people from that city, as well as some others. The day before, one of his people had seized my Fezzanee servant because he did not give ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... ever been entertained, no such demand ever made, Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... seven—nine," he says, craning his neck and casting up his eye. Then, turning with a jocular air to the elder lady opposite, "I don't suppose that Marshall & Belden, for instance, have got up to nine ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... a good deal to most people at thirty-five," said Mr. Skratdj, as he walked towards the door. "They would make a remarkable difference to me, I know;" and with a jocular air Mr. Skratdj departed, and Mrs. Skratdj had the rest of the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... the sunshine, there were as many people in the yard as there had been when he stood in the same place and watched the mob rushing his client's guards. But to-day their temper was different, and as he paused a moment, looking down on the upturned, laughing faces, with a hundred jocular and congratulatory salutations shouted up at him, somebody started a cheer, and it was taken ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... came home with a cold one day, she took it in such a jocular fashion that Tig felt not the least concern about her, and when, two days later, she died of pneumonia, he almost thought, at first, that it must be one of her jokes. She had departed with decision, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... 250 prisoners have come in, and are herded near. They are of all ages from sixty to fifteen, dressed in all varieties of rough plain clothes, with some ominous exceptions in the shape of a khaki tunic, a service overcoat, etc. Some seemed depressed, some jocular, the boys quite careless. All were lusty and well fed. Close by were their ponies, tiny little rats of things, dead-tired and very thin. Their saddles were mostly very old, with canvas or leather saddle-bags, containing cups, etc. I saw also ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... now and then make a remark, easily jocular. Another amiable woman—soothing presences, both—would answer. Or he would answer; there would be an interlude of familiar talk, rest, and laughing, and throwing a ball for a scampering puppy. At ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... where he appeared regularly every afternoon, riding on a little pony, and wearing a magnificent beard of twenty years' growth, which an Oriental might well have envied, the more remarkable in an age when shaving was so generally practised.—A jocular epitaph was composed on "Mary Van Butchell," of which these lines may serve as ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head with cackling raillery) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... coffee went down, and the beef-steak followed, Mr. Scrake seemed to relax, and to forget that his hat hung over his head, commemorative of the recent retirement of Mrs. Scrake from this 'wale of tears,' and became quite jocular on the subject of the fair sex, congratulating Kornicker upon his looks; calling him a lucky dog, and telling him that if he were him, he'd 'make up to some charming young woman with a fortune, and be off with her.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... him, and soldiers refreshed by food and coffee are in more receptive mood than when dejected by hunger. Some men in the third car who had heard his eager queries of the commissary sergeant knew for whom those supplies were meant, others did not, and of these latter one jocular and untutored Patlander sang out, "Bully for the leftenint; 'tis he that knows how to look out for number wan." Whereat there came furious shouts of "Shame!" "Shut up!" and inelegant and opprobrious epithets, all at the expense of the impetuous son of Erin who had spoken too soon. Some one whacked ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... Juve," he declared, in the same jocular strain, "for passing by such a sensational piece ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

... words have the stress on the antepenultima, which they shorten, as in 'secular' or keep short as in 'jocular', 'familiar', but ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: "If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks." And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells with jocular approval how ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... Brethren painted by Rimius. For malice, spite, indecency and unfairness, his works would be hard to match even in the vilest literature of the eighteenth century. As his books came out in rapid succession, the picture he drew grew more and more disgusting. He wrote in a racy, sometimes jocular style; and, knowing the dirty taste of the age, he pleased his public by retailing anecdotes as coarse as any in the "Decameron." His chief object was probably to line his own pockets. His first book, "The Candid Narrative," sold well. But his attack was mean and ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... improves upon Nature," one day Camille said to the girls." If a woman hasn't a good form Madame Corot can supply her such amorous proportions that lovers will straightway fall at her feet." But such jocular remarks were never made to the father— in his presence Camille was subdued and suspiciously respectful. The father had "disciplined" him—but had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... intervals of the action when the stage was empty, by sympathising and enthusiastic odes. But it is, moreover, consistent with the essence of the Old Comedy, where not merely the subject, but the whole manner of treating it was sportive and jocular. The unlimited dominion of mirth and fun manifests itself even in this, that the dramatic form itself is not seriously adhered to, and that its laws are often suspended; just as in a droll disguise the masquerader sometimes ventures to lay aside the mask. The practice of throwing out allusions and ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... head? and if so, upon which end of him did it grow?" Wouldn't it be matter for despair to feed his remorseless eye teeth upon, to find that the highest flights of your intellect were capable only of a jocular interpretation? But I feel certain there must be a mistake somewhere. As I said before, I am fortified with the comfortable assurance of the integrity of my heart in wishing to write only what will feed the hungry mind. By-the-bye, ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn

... this classical example of the snares ever lying around the footsteps of the impious, I perceived that the jocular stripling, whom I had so delicately reproved, was no longer present. Doubtless he had been unable to remain in the same room with the commanding Helena's high-spirited indignation, and anticipating that in consequence there would now be no obstacle to her full-faced benignity, I drew near ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... and by degrees glides, under the guise of apologetics for the famous Smectymnuus, into a fierce and indecent controversy with Bishop Hall, containing some of the worst examples of the author's deplorable inability to be jocular. Then comes the divorce series, which, with all its varied learning, is chiefly comic, owing to Milton's unfortunate blindness to the fact that he was trying to make a public question out of private ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... present. The drive was one of the largest ever held. But no start was made; immobilized, the vast crescent stuck motionless under the blazing sun. Here and there could be heard voices uplifted in jocular remonstrance. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... he contradicted, falling back into the half-jocular vein. "You're a pretty good spender, yourself, Madgie. If you didn't have plenty of money to eat and drink and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... on the floor in the center of the back wall, and places had been left at his right and left for Ambrose and Simon. He was disposed to be gracious and jocular to-night. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... a refreshment-room, I fortified myself with some biscuits and soda-water; and in another minute, for the first time in my life, I beheld a play. But the play did not fascinate me. It was the middle of some jocular after piece; roars of laughter resounded round me. I could detect nothing to laugh at, and sending my keen eyes into every corner, I perceived at last, in the uppermost tier, one face as saturnine as my own.—Eureka! It was the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... slap of rain, and heard, not far away, the measured beating of breakers as they charged at the foot of our cliff, when the wind, plucking the latch from my grasp, slammed the lattice and went yelling around the corner of the house like a jocular demon. I began to dress, thinking, as I had often thought before, that the place had a kind of fantastic kinship with the sea; every timber in it seemed to strain and creak to the repeated onsets of the storm, like those of any ship. The house stood steady enough, yet our position, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and unobtrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics, it has always struck me, was his intense love of excellence in everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark of his that "the best of everything was good enough for him." In this—perhaps unknowingly—he followed Lord Bacon's advice, "Jest in earnest," for he, certainly, earnestly carried out in life the desire to do, and to possess, the "best" that could be attained. Of this peculiarity, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... in the company of General Bramwell Booth to discover that he has two distinct and separate manners, and that neither expresses the whole truth of his rational life. At one moment he is full of cheerful good sense, the very incarnation of jocular heartiness, a bluff, laughing, rallying, chafing, and tolerant good fellow, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, oozing with the honey of social sweetness. At the next moment, however, the voice sinks suddenly to the key of what Father Knox, ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... Quarles's jocular, happy-go-lucky nature and general conduct did not altogether harmonize with John Clemens's more taciturn business methods. Notwithstanding the fact that he was a builder of dreams, Clemens was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... morning?" said Captain Wragge, in his easy jocular way. "And how's the wind? Nor'-west and by west, is it? Very good. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... Christopher was feeding a pack of hounds from a tin pan of coarse corn bread, and to the lawyer's surprise he was speaking to them in a tone that sounded almost jocular. Though born of a cringing breed, the dogs looked contented and well fed, and among them Carraway recognised his friend Spy, who had followed at ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... solicitous. "Is your wife pale?" it would inquire. "Is she discouraged, does she drag herself about the house and find fault with everything? Why do you not tell her to try Dr. Lanahan's Life Preservers?" Another would be jocular in tone, slapping you on the back, so to speak. "Don't be a chump!" it would exclaim. "Go and get the Goliath Bunion Cure." "Get a move on you!" would chime in another. "It's easy, if you wear the Eureka ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... swathed all up in dirty red flannel. He was no sort of a man to look at, as the Scots say, for his head was a mass of dirty yellow hair, and his face did not seem to have known an ablution for a week. But there was an ugly jocular look about his rabbit-like eyes and a great mark cut clean into the side of his face which were a fit decoration for the red-burnt, pitted, and horribly repulsive countenance he betrayed. His leer, too, as he greeted Hall, was the evil leer of a man ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... scraps, especially from the young ladies of the boarding-house, as they are so used to being fed on scraps, it will be no variety to them." Sister G. prided herself on her good table. I knew it was good, and hence felt free to make the jocular remark. Had it been otherwise, I should have felt ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... what was certainly an excellent counterfeit of it—though Sanderson was in no jocular mood, for at that moment he felt himself being drawn further and further into the meshes of the trap he had laid for himself—and she smiled trustfully at him, drawing a deep sigh of satisfaction and laying her head against ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... the ten minutes' bombardment before 8 o'clock was an unusual person, and he was often the Astronomer Royal. Besides his dignified name he possessed a wrist-watch, and there was never a movement in his mountain of blankets until 7.59 A.M., unless the jocular night-watchman chose to make a heap of them on the floor. To calls like "Breakfast all ready! Porridge on the table getting cold!" seventeen persons in varying stages of wakefulness responded. No one was guilty of an elaborate toilet, water being a scarce ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... up and shook away a tear or two, and laughed, but her speech was not as jocular as she ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... left the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when they made ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... received at first in silence, then Ringfield spoke, his slow utterances affording a contrast to the half-jocular, half-querulous words ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... of passion and tragedy we pass by easy steps into the jocular-colloquial region in which the volume opened. Painting in these later days of Browning's has ceased to yield high, or even serious poetry, and Baldinucci's tale of shabby trickery cannot be compared, even for grotesque humour, with the powerful grotesquerie of Holy-Cross Day, while it wholly lacks ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... know what to do," cried Mrs. Hazleton, with a slight laugh, as if at her own perplexity. "I was never in such a situation in my life;" and then she added, very rapidly and in a jocular tone, as if she were afraid of pausing upon or giving force to any one word, "if my poor father had been alive, he would have settled it all after his own way soon enough. He was a great match-maker you know, Sir Philip, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... thing around our fires at night, another tramper, thin and weak, came into camp. He was a little man with a curly red beard, and was exceedingly chipper and jocular for one in his condition. He had been out of food for some days, and had been living on squirrels, ground-hogs, and such other small deer as he could kill and roast along his way. He brought word of considerable suffering among the outfits behind us, reporting "The Dutchman" ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... good snug place too," said the lieutenant. "Good sandy bottom for running the lugger ashore. Nice game must have been carried on here. Come, Captain Duncan," he continued in a jocular tone, "you knew of this ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... Charlie's own; and only a series of calm "How-do's?" marked the greetings of these relatives. The Swetnams were more rollickingly demonstrative. Now that the drawing-room was quite thickly populated, Hilda, made nervous by Mr. Orgreave's jocular insinuation that she herself was the object of the Swetnams' call, took refuge, first with Janet, and then, as Janet was drawn into the general crowd, with Charlie, who was absently turning over ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... introduce this jocular note into our meditation, for we are honestly aggrieved that so many of the Christmas cards hark back to an old tradition that is gone, and never attempt to express any of the romance of to-day. You ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... family of one daughter and five extravagant and unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he offered, we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest fruits of the neighbourhood; and, like all the family, very choice in horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle-horse, Captain (for the names of horses are piously preserved in the family chronicle which I follow), ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... character to inspire great confidence in the strict performance of neutral duties. To ignore an allegation of so flagrant a character as the breach of neutrality, it was declared, constituted a disregard of American ideals in the interest of British imperialism which could not be excused by jocular references to "General" Pearson's request to the President "to either put an end to this state of affairs or permit me ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... Merriman, but you did give me a start," he cried, making an evident effort to be jocular. "What in all the world are you doing here at this hour? Sorry for my greeting, but one has to be careful here. You know the ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... or Weekes is spoken of by Anthony a Wood as a "jocular person" and a popular preacher. He enters Wood's Fasti by right of his co-optation as a D.D. in 1643, while the court was at Oxford; his education had been at Cambridge. He was a prebendary of Bristol and Dean of St. Burian ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... children as before, and Eva Gonorowsky, who had been the first to guess the jocular lady's meaning, put ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... suit. Harvey responded civilly enough, while Tessa, who had learned from the chief mate of the treacherous part they were playing towards her friend, could not repress a scornful curl of her lip as she listened to Chard's jocular admonition to Harvey, "to hurry up and put on some flesh, if only for the reputation of the ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke

... humour he was tyrannic in Jamaica, his native country.' Ib. iv. 156. He came over to England when young and was educated in Westminster School. Stephens's Horne Tooke, ii. 278. Cowper describes 'a jocular altercation that passed when I was once in the gallery [of the House], between Mr. Rigby and the late Alderman Beckford. The latter was a very incorrect speaker, and the former, I imagine, not a very accurate scholar. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... nights there was a great deal of angry discussion and violent altercation on the subject. In these debates, however, in accordance with my natural disposition, I took no part whatever, except by making some fruitless attempts to abate the resentment of the parties, by thrusting in a jocular remark or so, when anything particularly severe was said. Well, gentlemen, how was I rewarded for this charitable conduct, think ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... more rakish friends" is in keeping with the whole strain of this juvenile correspondence. Throughout there occurs no coarse or even jocular suggestion as to the conduct of Scott in that particular, as to which most youths of his then age are so apt to lay up stores of self-reproach. In this season of hot and impetuous blood he may not have escaped quite blameless, but I have the concurrent testimony of all the most ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart



Words linked to "Jocular" :   joking, humorous, joke, jesting, humourous, jocularity, jocosely



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