Noun She meant it as a joke, but many people took her seriously. They played a harmless joke on him. They are always making jokes about his car. I heard a funny joke yesterday. the punch line of a joke I didn't get the joke. That exam was a joke. Their product became a joke in the industry. He's in danger of becoming a national joke. Verb My friends would joke about the uniform I had to wear at work. She joked about the possibility of losing her job. I thought he was joking when he said he might quit, but it turned out that he really meant it. Don't take it seriously: I was only joking. She spent a few minutes joking with reporters after giving her speech. She joked that she could always get work as a truck driver if she lost her job. See More
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
After the incident, a joke went around that someone had knocked a beer can into the reactor. Mark Naida, WSJ, 12 Sep. 2022 Okay, at least Yaya is given one good joke in this movie. Emma Specter, Vogue, 9 Sep. 2022 The right person for you will be someone who doesn’t make negative comments as a joke to undermine you. Meredith Goldstein, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Sep. 2022 The name stuck as the scene ate itself and the joke wore off. Hannah Goldfield, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2022 Will Harry’s joke about the situation finally quell the endless social media jokes? Joe Lynch, Billboard, 8 Sep. 2022 Styles continued his monologue, letting out a giggle about his spit joke. Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 7 Sep. 2022 First of all, the organ harvest joke writes itself. The Politics Of Everything, The New Republic, 7 Sep. 2022 And there isn’t a lawyer joke that every lawyer has not heard. Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 6 Sep. 2022
Verb
Queen Elizabeth didn't only joke around with Paddington Bear and James Bond. Phil Boucher, Peoplemag, 12 Sep. 2022 Margus was a father, a school bus aide, a fun guy who liked to joke around. Silvia Foster-frau, Washington Post, 17 May 2022 The internet was quick to joke that Camila Morrone, who turned 25 in June, had aged out of the Leonardo DiCaprio girlfriend experience, as the actor has never publicly dated a woman over the age of 25. Alyssa Bailey, ELLE, 31 Aug. 2022 The revolving door only accelerated in the 20th century, allowing Istrians to joke that anyone born there before the First World War could have traveled to four different countries without leaving their home village. Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Aug. 2022 The trope is well known; however, the inversion opened the floor for people to take a jab at the dynamic or to joke about a meme format that has already gone stale. María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2022 During a speech in Romania last week, Orban also appeared to joke about the Holocaust while making a reference to reducing European demand for natural gas. Rick Klein, ABC News, 4 Aug. 2022 His presence prompted head coach Kevin Stefanski to joke Conklin might have just slept at the team’s practice facility. Dan Labbe, cleveland, 4 Aug. 2022 Thoroughly steeped in supernatural transformations, the siblings are unfazed by his unusual physicality, more likely to joke about it than to point out its strangeness. Crispin Long, The New Yorker, 12 July 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks