jolly

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Full of good humor and high spirits.
2. adj. Exhibiting or occasioning happiness or mirth; cheerful: a jolly tune.
3. adj. Greatly pleasing; enjoyable: had a jolly time.
4. adv. Chiefly British To a great extent or degree; extremely.
5. v. To keep amused or diverted for one's own purposes; humor.
6. v. To amuse oneself with humorous banter.
7. n. Chiefly British A good or festive time.
8. n. Slang Amusement; kicks: However you get your jollies is fine with me.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Gay; of fine appearance; handsome; well-conditioned; thriving.
2. Full of life and merriment; jovial; gaily cheerful; festive.
3. Characterized or attended by joviality; expressing or inspiring mirth; exciting mirthfulness or gaiety.
4. Gallant; brave.
5. Great; remarkable; uncommon: as, a jolly muff.
6. Synonyms Jolly, Jovial, Mirthful, Merry, Facetious, playful, funny, sprightly, frolicsome, sportive. Facetious is distinguished from the first four words in applying to the making of witticisms rather than to the continuous flow of contagious good humor easily breaking into laughter. If there is any difference between jolly and jovial, it is that the latter is rather the more dignified of the two. Mirthful and merry imply most of laughter, and jolly stands next in this respect. There is little difference between mirthful and merry, but the former may be the more dignified and the latter the more demonstrative. Merry expresses the largest and freest overflow of animal spirits. See hilarity and mirth.
7. Remarkably; uncommonly; very: as, jolly awkward; jolly drunk.
8. To rejoice; make merry.
9. Slightly exhilarated by drink.
10. Fine; pretty; great; big:used vaguely, often ironically: as, that's a jolly way of doing things; what a jolly fool he looked! a jolly shame.
11. n. Good-natured bantering talk intended to cheer a person or to induce him to comply with the wishes of the speaker.
12. n. A cheer; a hurrah.
13. n. A sham bidder at an auction; a confederate of cheats.
14. n. A British slang name for a marine: not used with reference to United States marines.
15. To make a false offer or bid at an auction.
16. To ridicule; make fun of; chaff.
17. To be jolly or good natured to (a person), with the idea of cheering him up or of getting something out of him; flatter.
18. n. In ceramics, a machine used for making plates; a variety of the jigger. See the extract.
19. n. A jolly-boat.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Full of high and merry spirits; jovial.
2. n. UK a pleasure trip or excursion
3. adv. UK, dated very, extremely
4. v. transitive To amuse or divert.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Full of life and mirth; jovial; joyous; merry; mirthful.
2. adj. Expressing mirth, or inspiring it; exciting mirth and gayety.
3. adj. Now mostly colloq., Now mostly colloq. Of fine appearance; handsome; excellent; lively; agreeable; pleasant.
4. v. colloq. To cause to be jolly; to make good-natured; to encourage to feel pleasant or cheerful; -- often implying an insincere or bantering spirit; hence, to poke fun at.
5. n. Sailor's Slang A marine in the English navy.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a happy party
2. v. be silly or tease one another
3. n. a yawl used by a ship's sailors for general work
4. adj. full of or showing high-spirited merriment
5. adv. to a moderately sufficient extent or degree