What does Droll mean?

Definitions for Droll
droʊldroll

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word Droll.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. drolladjective

    comical in an odd or whimsical manner

    "a droll little man with a quiet tongue-in-cheek kind of humor"

Wiktionary

  1. drollnoun

    A buffoon

  2. drollverb

    To joke, to jest.

  3. drolladjective

    oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish

  4. Etymology: From drôle, from drôle from drolle from drolle, of origin, from drol from troll (compare trolle), from truzlan, from truzlanan. More at troll.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. DROLLnoun

    Etymology: droler, French.

    As he was running home in all haste, a droll takes him up by the way. Roger L'Estrange.

    Why, how now, Andrew! cries his brother droll;
    To-day’s conceit, methinks, is something dull. Matthew Prior.

    Democritus, dear droll, revisit earth,
    And with our follies glut thy heighten’d mirth. Matthew Prior.

    Some as justly fame extols,
    For lofty lines in Smithfield drolls. Jonathan Swift.

  2. To Drollverb

    To jest; to play the buffoon.

    Etymology: drôle, French.

    Such august designs as inspire your inquiries used to be decided by drolling fantasticks, that have only wit enough to make others and themselves ridiculous. Joseph Glanvill, Sceps.

    Men that will not be reasoned into their senses, may yet be laughed or drolled into them. Roger L'Estrange.

    Let virtuosoes insult and despise on, yet they never shall be able to droll away nature. Robert South, Sermons.

Wikipedia

  1. Droll

    A droll is a short comical sketch of a type that originated during the Puritan Interregnum in England. With the closure of the theatres, actors were left without any way of plying their art. Borrowing scenes from well-known plays of the Elizabethan theatre, they added dancing and other entertainments and performed these, sometimes illegally, to make money. Along with the popularity of the source play, material for drolls was generally chosen for physical humor or for wit. Francis Kirkman's The Wits, or Sport Upon Sport, 1662, is a collection of twenty-seven drolls. Three are adapted from Shakespeare: Bottom the Weaver from A Midsummer Night's Dream, the gravedigger's scene from Hamlet, and a collection of scenes involving Falstaff called The Bouncing Knight. A typical droll presented a subplot from John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan; the piece runs together all the scenes in which a greedy vintner is gulled and robbed by a deranged gallant. Just under half of the drolls in Kirkman's book are adapted from the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. Among the drolls taken from those authors are Forc'd Valour (the title plot from The Humorous Lieutenant), The Stallion (the scenes in the male brothel from The Custom of the Country), and the taunting of Pharamond from Philaster. The prominence of Beaumont and Fletcher in this collection prefigures their dominance on the early Restoration stage. The extract from their Beggar's Bush, known as The Lame Commonwealth, features additional dialogue, strongly suggesting it was taken from a performance text. The character of Clause, the King of the Beggars in that extract, appears as a character in later works, such as the memoirs of Bampfylde Moore Carew, the self-proclaimed King of the Beggars. Actor Robert Cox was perhaps the best-known of the droll performers.

ChatGPT

  1. droll

    Droll can be defined as something or someone that is amusing, funny, or whimsical in a strange or unusual way. It refers to a sense of humor characterized by dry, wry, or quirky wit.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Droll

    queer, and fitted to provoke laughter; ludicrous from oddity; amusing and strange

  2. Drollnoun

    one whose practice it is to raise mirth by odd tricks; a jester; a buffoon; a merry-andrew

  3. Drollnoun

    something exhibited to raise mirth or sport, as a puppet, a farce, and the like

  4. Drollverb

    to jest; to play the buffoon

  5. Drollverb

    to lead or influence by jest or trick; to banter or jest; to cajole

  6. Drollverb

    to make a jest of; to set in a comical light

Wikidata

  1. Droll

    A droll is a short comical sketch of a type that originated during the Puritan Interregnum in England. With the closure of the theatres, actors were left without any way of plying their art. Borrowing scenes from well-known plays of the Elizabethan theatre, they added dancing and other entertainments and performed these, sometimes illegally, to make money. Along with the popularity of the source play, material for drolls was generally chosen for physical humor or for wit. Francis Kirkman's The Wits, or Sport Upon Sport, 1662, is a collection of twenty-seven drolls. Three are adapted from Shakespeare: Bottom the Weaver from A Midsummer Night's Dream, the gravedigger's scene from Hamlet, and a collection of scenes involving Falstaff called The Bouncing Knight. A typical droll presented a subplot from John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan; the piece runs together all the scenes in which a greedy vintner is gulled and robbed by a deranged gallant. Just under half of the drolls in Kirkman's book are adapted from the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. Among the drolls taken from those authors are Forc'd Valour, The Stallion, and the taunting of Pharamond from Philaster. The prominence of Beaumont and Fletcher in this collection prefigures their dominance on the early Restoration stage. The extract from their Beggar's Bush, known as The Lame Commonwealth, features additional dialogue, strongly suggesting it was taken from a performance text. The character of Clause, the King of the Beggars in that extract, appears as a character in later works, such as the memoirs of Bampfylde Moore Carew, the self-proclaimed King of the Beggars.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Droll

    drōl, adj. odd: amusing: laughable.—n. one who excites mirth: a jester.—v.i. to practise drollery: to jest.—ns. Droll′ery; Droll′ing.—adjs. Droll′ish, rather droll; Droll′y. [Fr., prob. from Dut. drollig, odd—trold, a hobgoblin; cf. Ger. droll, a short thick person.]

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. DROLL

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Droll is ranked #41657 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Droll surname appeared 522 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Droll.

    94.8% or 495 total occurrences were White.
    2.6% or 14 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
    1.1% or 6 total occurrences were of two or more races.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of Droll in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of Droll in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Popularity rank by frequency of use

Droll#10000#67912#100000

Translations for Droll

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"Droll." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/Droll>.

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