droll (drol)

[ To the Dolphin taverne, where Sir Thomas Harvy and myself dined, and very merry we were, Sir Thomas Harvy being a very drolle . Pepys , Diary, II. 241. .. Demo crit us, dear Droll , revisit Earth. Prior, Demo crit us and Her a clit us. We see one of these drolls holding a pair of bellows by way of a fiddle, and using the tongs as a substitute for the bow. Strutt , Sports and Pastimes, p. 390. IMG:content-3172.jpg:[blocks in formation] The rich drollery of "She Stoops to Conquer." Macaulay, Oliver Goldsmith. 3. Comical action, as in a dramatic representation; something something used or done to excite mirth. He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget tales, tempests, and such like drolleries. B. Jonson , Bartholomew Fair, Ind. 4t. A comic picture. We arrived late at Roterdam, where was their annual marte or faire, so furnished with pictures (especially Landskips and Drolleries, as they call those clounish representations) that I was amaz'd. Evelyn, Diary, Aug. 13, 1641. Their [Dutch artists'] pictures, in their own age, were not cla ed in the range of serious work; they bore commonly the significant name of Drolleries . F. T. Palgrave , Nineteenth Century, XXIII. 85. droll-houset (drōl'hous), n. A place where drolls or drolleries were acted. Should the senate-house where all our lawgivers a emble be used for a theatre or droll - house , or for idle puppet-shows? Watts, Holine of Times, etc., iii.