Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To joke or quip.
- v. To make sport of.
- n. A joke or quip.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive To jest; play tricks; joke; jeer.
- v. transitive To mock; deride; gibe; trick; befool.
- n. a joke
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To jest; to play tricks; to jeer.
- v. To mock; to trick.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter
Etymologies
- From Middle English japen ("to joke, play tricks"), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French japer ("to bark, howl, scream") (possibly conflated with Old French gaber ("to mock, deride"), see gab), related to Old Provençal japar, jaupar ("to bark, yelp, yap"), probably of Germanic origin, related to Old Saxon galpōn ("to cry loudly, make a noise, brag") (Low German galpen ("to bark, howl, scream")), Middle High German gelpfen ("to scream, bark, boast, proclaim"), Old Norse gjálpa ("to yelp") (Swedish dialectal galpa ("to cry, screech")). More at yelp, yawp, yap. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English japen, probably from Old French japer, to yap, chatter, nag, of imitative origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“We don’t want to criminalise a group of students, but at the same time we don’t want to treat the problem as some kind of jape, either.”
“Even Ponting describes the quiet as "appalling" on one of his intertitles, which otherwise often have a jolly-jape feel.”
The Guardian: The disquieting sound of The Great White Silence
“That eye wanted to cross, to discredit Perkus Tooth's whole sober aura with a comic jape.”
“The Huffington Post noted the references as well as more "jokes" in the same vein (including a video of Cooper's jape, over which David Gergen cluelessly chortles).”
“I remember when I was a young boy, 1 April fell on a Saturday, so the Football League decided to create a 'hilarious' jape by sending referees and linesmen with thematically linked names to the same game," recalls Robin Tucker.”
“Cambridge Union Society's pole-dancing jape is just plain daft.”
The Guardian: Actually, you won't find female empowerment halfway up a pole
“People would halt the progress of whatever parley they were engaged in and turn to stop him in aisles and antechambers, demanding an instant jape or trick from him.”
“Such little verses always made the best sort of jape.”
“A little jape on himself, and one that would certainly deliver more concrete rewards than his loftier verse.”
“Chef Nikki Billington and her partner Paul Watson had always made running a restaurant feel less like a business venture and more like a jolly jape.”
The Guardian: The 20 best places to eat in Britain this summer
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘jape’.
-
Of Imitative Origin
Words formed in imitation of the sound of the things they signify.
bawl, biff, blizzard, blob, blooper, bob, boff, bomb, bonkers, boo, borborygmus, brouhaha and 148 more...
-
January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
-
nachchba's Words
stentorian, blasé, ennui, concinnity, melee, photokeratitis, skiffle, refulgence, mongrel, fakir, caid, eudaimonia and 215 more...
-
Scrabble words which start with the l...
juvenile, juvenal, jutty, jute, jut, justness, justly, justle, justify, justice, juster, just and 534 more...
-
Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
-
Papageno's Words, Pt. II
cicurate, circumforaneous, codger, comiconomenclaturist, constable, contradistinction, contraindicated, counterpane, coxcomb, decalcomania, decanal, decoction and 307 more...
-
Unusual words for Words With Friends
A list of words that WWF recognizes as valid - most are unusual words; some are simply high-scoring.
botel, slipe, jeu, chub, chubs, cote, mure, tittle, dev, loo, hoke, helo and 357 more...
-
Really Cool Four-Letter Words
I marvel at the amazing variety of four-letter words in the English language. And that's not even counting really common (to me) words like fuck.
ibis, pelf, sofa, iota, oboe, lava, icon, sped, puha, pulp, puma, kyat and 150 more...
-
Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
-
Life is just a four-letter word
Everyone's got their favorites. Here are some of mine.
snit, hobo, minx, kiln, loll, pelf, yegg, ugly, bumf, brio, biro, haha and 92 more...
-
word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
-
Onomatopoetics
Words formed in imitation of a natural sound.
bumble-bee, rat-a-tat, blurt, clink, chickadee, rub-a-dub, chirr, chug, keck, flim-flam, brekekekex, thunk and 94 more...
-
ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
-
samoritan's Words
moxie, zarf, crepuscular, serenity, halcyon, powerfuller, instant classic, abecedary, trilobite, doomsters, 'da bome, evanescence and 149 more...
-
Learned words
Words which are highly likely to be found in the work of learned writers.
ailurophile, labyrinthine, lagniappe, colleague, anechoic, reglets, fluctuations, scalar, implicit, constitute, mortification, ambassadors and 629 more...
-
Dewitful
visions of witfulness and vision - a wise guise
revision, advisor, ideal, witty, witness, veda, druid, penguin, hadal, idea, story, history and 269 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for jape.
bilby "The word fuck is first found in a dictionary in 1598, when it was one of five synonyms given to translate the Italian word fottere (the others were jape, sard, swive, and occupy)."
- Jesse Sheidlower, Can a Woman "Prong" a Man?, slate.com, 1 Oct 2009. Oct 6, 2009
bilby ROTCL. Jul 3, 2008
taciturnyetprolix Well, I hear some of the furniture is naked, and that's always funny. Jul 3, 2008
bilby There's a big furniture store in Darwin, Australia, named Jape. Uproarious lounges?
Nov 21, 2007
ulleskelf Hilarity unconfined! Oct 12, 2007