joviality

From French jovialité.

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒoʊviˈælɪti/

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• Rhymes: -ælɪti

joviality (countable and uncountable, plural jovialities)

1. The state of being jovial; jollity or conviviality.
   • 1651, Fulgenzio Micanzio, The Life of the Most Learned Father Paul, Of the Order of the Servie, translator not credited, London: Humphrey Moseley and Richard Marriot, p. 13,

     The Duke […] willingly interposed the pleasures of wit and facetiousnesse with the grave cares of his government, tempering wisely his troubles with Joviality of words and actions […]

   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter V, in Great Expectations […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC:

     I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality.

   • 1881, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 10, in The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages, Montreal, Que.: Dawson Brothers, →OCLC:

     This remark sobered the father’s joviality, and brought his mind to business.

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 24, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section IV:

     By the joviality of their insults Babbitt knew that he had been taken back to their hearts, and happily he rose.

   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part Two, Chapter 6:

     Joviality fled from the table, Shekhar studied his cards. Owad frowned at his. His foot was tapping on the concrete floor. More watchers came.

   • 2014 November 6, Benjamin Poore, “Carry on campus: The satirical needling deflates the high-minded ideals of the groves of academy”, in The Independent:

     Success on social media tends to instil in the early career academics and postgraduates who achieve it, after merciless encouragement from outreach and impact gurus in HE management, a kind of unwavering, po-faced self-belief in their own genius and thus the vital urgency of their research, the overall effect being a strange mixture of corporate cynicism and uneasy joviality.