drollery

Etymology

From French drôlerie.

Noun

drollery (countable and uncountable, plural drolleries)

1. Comical quality.
   • 1915, W.S. Maugham, "Of Human Bondage", chapter 121:

     He found that Sally had a restrained, but keen, sense of the ridiculous, and she made remarks about the girls or the men who were set over them which amused him by their unexpected drollery.

2. Amusing behavior.
3. Something humorous, funny or comical.
4. (archaic) a puppet show; a comic play or entertainment; a comic picture; a caricature.
5. A joke; a funny story.
6. A small decorative image in the margin of an illuminated manuscript.

References

• “drollery” in John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.