droll

English

From French drôle (“comical, odd, funny”), from drôle (“buffoon”) from Middle French drolle (“a merry fellow, pleasant rascal”) from Old French drolle (“one who lives luxuriously”), from Middle Dutch drol (“fat little man, goblin”) from Old Norse troll (“giant, troll”) (compare Middle High German trolle (“clown”)), from Proto-Germanic *truzlą (“creature which walks clumsily”), from Proto-Germanic *truzlaną (“to walk with short steps”). More at troll.

droll (comparative droller, superlative drollest)

oddly humorous; whimsical

droll (plural drolls)

(archaic) A buffoon.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[[Episode 12: The Cyclops]]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:
  Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies.

droll (third-person singular simple present drolls, present participle drolling, simple past and past participle drolled)

(archaic) To joke, to jest.
- 1886, Robert Louise Stevenson, Kidnapped
  "Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious! But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in black and white?

droll n (genitive singular drolls, no plural)

declension of droll

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