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jocular
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  • "Certainly," he said with a jocularity that I saw as false but was probably convincing for the others.†   (source)
  • I don't want to mess with it," Nathaniel says jocularly.†   (source)
  • The list was clearly jocular.†   (source)
  • Another chapter dealt with the IPO of Telia stock—it was the book's most jocular and ironic section, in which some financial writers were castigated by name, including one William Borg, to whom Blomkvist seemed to be particularly hostile.†   (source)
  • On the second day his mother called the police, who had remained noncommittal and jocular, until his father's briefcase was found in the cloakroom of the museum in Pittsburgh, his suitcase and camera in his hotel.†   (source)
  • He gave her a jocular grin and scratched the side of his face.†   (source)
  • His demeanor was friendly, almost jocular, as he approached.†   (source)
  • The closer they were to action, the more jocularity bothered him.†   (source)
  • But even if Matt understood this, he could not place it in the jocular context of broad bombhead sport.†   (source)
  • He quickly returned home to a routine that never varied: menial work, the bottle, the police, the jocular but tormenting question from his fellow Pimas: "How's the hero, Ira?"†   (source)
  • They called him 'Yo-Yo' jocularly and came in tipsy late at night and woke him up with their clumsy, bumping, giggling efforts to be quiet, then bombarded him with asinine shouts of hilarious good-fellowship when he sat up cursing to complain.†   (source)
  • He's noticed a jocular, familial air to the hallways of East Andrews, a feeling (more relief than resignation) that this place, in some official way, has now become home for all of them.†   (source)
  • The intruder's eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he'd slept in his clothes, but his manner was jocular.†   (source)
  • So with caution and restraint and citing the letter as a source, I wrote a rather jocular account of The Ten in my history, carefully stating that no one knew for sure whether The Ten existed or not, but that the rumor of its existence had always had a powerful hold on the imagination of the Corps and the alumni.†   (source)
  • Suddenly a familiar whine threatens my jocular mood.†   (source)
  • And as much as I understood that they probably liked me well enough and found my company (and convenient stewardship of them) pleasing, what I looked forward to each year with genuine fondness was being with fellow businessmen, and passing those easy, jocular hours of camaraderie by the pool or greenside or in a smoky bar, when we spoke of nothing profound or consequential but still seemed to make the time somehow worthwhile.†   (source)
  • Mary is delighted at her husband's sudden jocularity and his ability to seemingly leave the burdens of the White House behind the instant they leave the grounds.†   (source)
  • jocularly.†   (source)
  • "Bad news," I improvised in a jocular tone.†   (source)
  • These would start with the predawn slaughter of Miller's hogs and turn into a sixteen-hour bout of boiling, scraping, grinding, chopping, slicing, stuffing, feasting, gossip, and high-spirited jocularity.†   (source)
  • "Good-bye, Leamas," said Kiever, his voice jocular.†   (source)
  • He was a little man, with dull ruffled hair, a baked-apple face, and an air of uneasy though aggressive jocularity.†   (source)
  • Simon can't tell whether or not he intends to be jocular.†   (source)
  • There are jocular terms for it: up the spout, bun in the oven.†   (source)
  • He liked to frame his solution jocularly: "I do believe in God.†   (source)
  • "Where's your old man?" he asked with brusque jocularity.†   (source)
  • "But you must talk women's talk sometimes," said Dick, with awkward jocularity.†   (source)
  • The woman gave her jocular woodpecker yodel, and explained that they'd removed all the brain functions that had nothing to do with digestion, assimilation, and growth.†   (source)
  • He retains hold of my arm, and as he talks his spine straightens imperceptibly, his chest expands, his voice assumes more and more the sprightliness and jocularity of youth.†   (source)
  • Each walked cautiously around the other, watching for an opening--their cautiousness provoked much jocularity in the onlookers.†   (source)
  • "We've got to get you fixed up," she remembered him saying, in a kind of half-jocular tone which brought to her lips the first trace of a grin since she had collapsed.†   (source)
  • But he said, in a jocular uncomfortable voice: "There was once an Empress of Russia who thought so little of her slaves, as human beings, that she used to undress naked in front of them."†   (source)
  • There was her father, the little man with the plump juicy stomach, beer-smelling and jocular, whom she hated, holding her mother in his arms as they stood by the window.†   (source)
  • I know why you want to go," she said jocularly.†   (source)
  • To begin then, he was the son of a commonplace little round man —Judge Hills—'Buzzy' he was called in the family —and like a bluebottle, buzzing, I still remember him; short, jocular, in knickerbockers, giving us Russian toffee up at Corby.†   (source)
  • If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is "mean"; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer "mean" but a comical fellow.†   (source)
  • Her men-friends would assume a sort of forced heartiness and ask me jocular questions about history or painting, guessing I had not long left school and that this would be my only form of conversation.†   (source)
  • And as they peeled, or pared, or whittled, their talk slid from its rude jocularity to death and burial: they drawled monotonously, with evil hunger, their gossip of destiny, and of men but newly lain in the earth.†   (source)
  • "Yes, there is MacMurfee, but if you want any blackmailing done, get somebody else to do it" "Even on MacMurfee?" he asked, with a hint of jocularity, to which I didn't respond.†   (source)
  • "You've got to look after Barnard," he told Miss Brinklow, half jocularly, half meaning it; and she answered with the coyness of an eagle: "I'll do my best, but you know, I've never been roped before."†   (source)
  • "Like my daughters," he said jocularly.†   (source)
  • He preferred to be jocular.†   (source)
  • "Don't tell me you didn't know I was to be your brother-in-law this spring," he said with nervous jocularity.†   (source)
  • By the way, I hope you understood, too, that some apparently uncomplimentary references to Slubgob were purely jocular.†   (source)
  • She cried, expecting some coarse and jocular remark from him which she would never be able to forget.†   (source)
  • She nodded with significant jocularity, her big smiling face drenched in the curious radiance and purity that occasionally dwelt so beautifully there.†   (source)
  • "You've got to help me drum up some trade, if we're to live, boy," she said again, with the lip-pursing, mouth-tremulous jocularity that was coming to wound him so deeply, because he felt it was only an obvious mask for a more obvious insincerity.†   (source)
  • The minutes dragged by to the accompaniment of various jocular remarks anent a fool and his money.†   (source)
  • Miss Corby's role was jocularity: she always entered the conversation with a handspring.†   (source)
  • Another would be jocular in tone, slapping you on the back, so to speak.†   (source)
  • I queried, with a well-meant effort at jocularity.†   (source)
  • Again, and Paul could understand him least then, he was jocular and in high spirits.†   (source)
  • They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo.†   (source)
  • The man would be an opinionated politician, heavily jocular about The Bride.†   (source)
  • She was irritated when Kennicott was jocular about "these frightful big doings that are going on."†   (source)
  • Going," with ponderous jocularity, "going to blow you all to a swell feed at the Grand—"†   (source)
  • He was embarrassingly jocular and salacious.†   (source)
  • He elaborately, heavily, jocularly tried to check them.†   (source)
  • 'What's the matter with you, porochial Dick?' inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity.†   (source)
  • "Ah, ah!" said Bonacieux, "you are a jocular companion!†   (source)
  • "He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore him," added jocular Mr. Tubber.†   (source)
  • Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed jocularity.†   (source)
  • [Rallying her jocularly] So you don't think me such a scoundrel now you come to think it over.†   (source)
  • "Good heavens, how you see through one!" he cried with a dismay that was not altogether jocular.†   (source)
  • There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed to-day.†   (source)
  • 'Well, my Slider,' said Mr Squeers, jocularly.†   (source)
  • "Ha, ha, true!" cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Gunch squeaked, and they jumped with unnatural jocularity, but at Frink's hiss they sank into subdued awe.†   (source)
  • Simply mentioning such things causes our own expression to change, and we notice that, although thus far we may have spoken of such questionable liaisons in a light and jocular tone, we did it for the same mysterious reasons people usually speak of them in that fashion—not that it in any way proves the subject to be a matter of levity and jest.†   (source)
  • If she was vulgar, jocular, unreticent, she was also gallant, she was full of laughter at humbugs, she was capable of a loyalty too casual and natural to seem heroic.†   (source)
  • They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I did not catch, but which raised a general laugh.†   (source)
  • Schwartz in particular irritated him by his jocularity, vivacity, and savoir-faire, which reminded him of what he himself had been ten years ago.†   (source)
  • …glad to do any little service, such as lend a time-table or impart useful information, and their desire, pulsing in them, tugging at them subterraneously, somehow to establish connections if it were only a birthplace (Liverpool, for example) in common or friends of the same name; with their furtive glances, odd silences, and sudden withdrawals into family jocularity and isolation; there they sat eating dinner when Mr. Walsh came in and took his seat at a little table by the curtain.†   (source)
  • Over the barton-gate the dairyman saw them, and came forward, throwing into his face the kind of jocularity deemed appropriate in Talbothays and its vicinity on the re-appearance of the newly-married.†   (source)
  • And, he himself, after bathing and dressing, assuming a jocular air although his nerves remained tense and his mood apprehensive.†   (source)
  • There was some speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Traveller's absence, and I suggested time travelling, in a half-jocular spirit.†   (source)
  • There is the curious coincidence of dates, but I do not know whether that is one of those sinister, as if half jocular and altogether merciless proceedings on the part of a cruel Providence that we call a coincidence.†   (source)
  • Sometimes he would notice it, pat it, call it half-mocking, half-jocular names, and so make it caper with extraordinary delight; sometimes he would ill-treat it, especially after he had been at the whiskey, kicking it, beating it, pelting it with stones or lighted fusees.†   (source)
  • Mrs Ashburnham caused her husband to reply, with a letter a little more jocular—something to the effect that Colonel Powys ought to give them some idea of the goods that he was marketing.†   (source)
  • They all talked at once in loud, jocular voices, gave one another encouraging pokes in the ribs, and made a point of showing just how at ease they were.†   (source)
  • In short, it was a true regaling cordial, a splendid drink that invigorated, stimulated, and quickened the system—an intoxicating drug, as well, by the way; one could very easily get a little tipsy and mellow from it, he said, gesturing with both fingers and head as he had the night before in the grand jocular fashion that made him resemble a dancing heathen priest.†   (source)
  • Del interrupted the shaving of Sam and, with his brush dripping lather, he observed jocularly: "What'll she be up to next?†   (source)
  • Save with Paul Riesling, mechanical friendships—back-slapping and jocular, never daring to essay the test of quietness.†   (source)
  • When they did venture, tables got in their way, and they sought to cover embarrassment by heavy jocularity at the coatroom.†   (source)
  • After announcing this determination, the honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant display of ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman quite into the shade.†   (source)
  • "Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov, who at the Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight.†   (source)
  • In our time the harshest man writing to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not venture wantonly to indulge in the cruel jocularity which I have quoted; and even if his own manners allowed him to do so, the manners of society at large would forbid it.†   (source)
  • But I beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish himself accordingly.†   (source)
  • Nor was this done jocularly, for anger flashed from the giant's eyes, and there were certain signs that seemed to threaten much more earnestness than the occasion would appear to call for.†   (source)
  • Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is much doubted in Lincoln's Inn.†   (source)
  • She was incapable of elaborate artifice, and she resorted to no jocular device—to no affectation of the belief that she had been maligned—to learn what she desired.†   (source)
  • "Hem—why, I guess I am not far out of the way," returned Elnathan, endeavoring to imitate the expression of the other's countenance, by looking jocular.†   (source)
  • 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 buy him a new one.†   (source)
  • All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality.†   (source)
  • She did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.†   (source)
  • If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in the street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his side, or the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row.†   (source)
  • My wife smiled, for her dislike of 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 very cool in summer?'†   (source)
  • To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, 'Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men.†   (source)
  • "I'm not certain it would much mend the matter, if I were to speak with my tongue instead of the piece," said Paul, in a tone half jocular half bitter.†   (source)
  • Long practised in all the subtle arts of his race, he drew, with great dexterity and quickness, the fantastic shadow that the natives were accustomed to consider as the evidence of a friendly and jocular disposition.†   (source)
  • Such a day was that on which the garrison of Oswego assembled to witness what its commander had jocularly called a "passage of arms."†   (source)
  • Newman had spoken with cheerful seriousness, but Madame de Bellegarde's tone made him go on, after a meditative pause, with a certain light grimness of jocularity.†   (source)
  • "That!" said Benjamin, looking coolly over the sheriff's shoulder, and rolling the tobacco about in his mouth with a jocular air; "why, that's a small matter of my own.†   (source)
  • "The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain Tushin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt a jocular tone.†   (source)
  • But you're very beautiful yourself," he added with a politeness by no means crudely jocular and with the happy consciousness that his advanced age gave him the privilege of saying such things—even to young persons who might possibly take alarm at them.†   (source)
  • He was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone was facetious and jocular.†   (source)
  • Soon after his arrival he languidly wrote to his brother, the honourable and jocular member, that the Bounderbys were 'great fun;' and further, that the female Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, and remarkably pretty.†   (source)
  • Of course she was joking, but there was always something ironical in her jokes, as there was always something jocular in her gravity.†   (source)
  • So saying, the engaging youth nodded knowingly at poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley in a jocular and exulting manner.†   (source)
  • "What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns mademoiselle in a jocular strain.†   (source)
  • In the mean time, Major Hartmann began to grow noisy and jocular; glass succeeded glass, and mug after mug was introduced, until the carousal had run deep into the night, or rather morning; when the veteran German ex— I pressed an inclination to return to the mansionhouse.†   (source)
  • These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was.†   (source)
  • With that, he jocularly tapped Mrs Sliderskew under the chin, and appeared, for the moment, inclined to celebrate the close of his bachelor days by imprinting a kiss on her shrivelled lips.†   (source)
  • …of Inez and Ellen; and even Paul, when he saw an armed sentinel in the uniform of the States, pacing before its entrance, was content to stray among the dwellings of the "Red-skins," prying with but little reserve into their domestic economy, commenting sometimes jocularly, sometimes gravely, and always freely, on their different expedients, or endeavouring to make the wondering housewives comprehend his quaint explanations of what he conceived to be the better customs of the whites.†   (source)
  • Newman had once spent a morning, in the course of business, at Mr. Babcock's birthplace, and, for reasons too recondite to unfold, his visit there always assumed in his mind a jocular cast.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER II — VERY RIDICULOUS MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole night and a day in a state of so much hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would scarcely have recognized him during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of the honourable and jocular member.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • Rostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly, jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom the general knew.†   (source)
  • I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest offence.†   (source)
  • Then Newman had a singular sensation; he felt his sense of injury almost brimming over into jocularity.†   (source)
  • "Faith, the Major's big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael said; "he'll ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the matter off jocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young to keep house, and had written home to ask lave of his mamma."†   (source)
  • The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy with his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly through his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dolokhov was a secret to no one but himself.†   (source)
  • Assuming the negation to refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not having lunch when one can get it.†   (source)
  • One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched since Becky Sharp played quadrilles upon it—seated at the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling to the best of her power in imitation of the music which she had sometimes heard.†   (source)
  • It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make her do it.†   (source)
  • Richard, begging me, for the greater grace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and received the necessary acknowledgment.†   (source)
  • "I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he being so much older and more clever than I. "No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most agreeable jocularity of surprise.†   (source)
  • This, and my being esteem'd a pretty good riggite, that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the society.†   (source)
  • (He wags his head with cackling raillery) Jocular.†   (source)
  • "Your worship is pleased to be jocular," answered the parson; "but I do not only animadvert on the sinfulness of the action—though that surely is to be greatly deprecated—but I fear his unrighteousness may injure him with Mr Allworthy.†   (source)
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