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noun

Drollery n. (pl. drolleries)

The quality of being droll; sportive tricks; buffoonery; droll stories; comical gestures or manners. "The rich drollery of "She Stoops to Conquer.""

Something which serves to raise mirth; as:

(a)

A puppet show; also, a puppet. (Obs.)

(b)

A lively or comic picture. (Obs.) "I bought an excellent drollery, which I afterward parted with to my brother George of Wotton."

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Etymology of 'Drollery'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Drollery" Quotes from Famous Books

... admitted into drawing-rooms, they should have no offset but the exercise of a virtue in which no one would believe. This was because in foreign countries actresses were not admitted into drawing-rooms: that was a pure English drollery, ministering equally little to real histrionics and to the higher tone of these resorts. Did the oppressive sanctity which made it a burden to have to reckon with his young friend come then from her being English? Peter could recall ...

— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... had cared about the fate of the Bourbons; no one would have hesitated to make peace with Napoleon, if Napoleon would have accepted terms of peace. The manifesto was not, however, intended to meet a scientific criticism. In the English Foreign Office it was correctly described as a piece of drollery; and Metternich was too familiar with the language of principles himself to attach much meaning to it in the mouth of anyone else. Talleyrand, however, kept a grave countenance. With inimitable composure the old Minister ...

— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... he has another confounded Fling at Foreigners; and after having determinately dubb'd his Hero, the Prince of Statesmen, he concludes his Dissertation with a Mess of Drollery, and goes ...

— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous

... bamboo-cane, driving his herd to the spiritual pasture. He seemed himself to be conscious of the burlesque attaching to his office,—at least he behaved very absurdly in it, and many a stroke fell rather in jest than in earnest. The drollery of the driver did not, however, enliven the dejected countenances of ...

— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... we almost never hear war talk. We did hear some while our local clown was home, but how much was true and how much his imagination I don't know. Anyway, his drollery made us all laugh. His mother-in-law had died since he left, and when his wife wept on his shoulder, he patted her on the back, and winked over his shoulder at his admiring friends, as he said: "Chut, ma fille, if you are going to cry in these days because someone dies, you'll have no time ...

— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

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