waggery

• “They are tedious, but the "waggery" is conspicuous by its absence.] {509} [mq] _With all his laurels growing upon one tree_.”

  The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6

• “With typical waggery he said his success was due to heroic wartime reporting by Edward R. Murrow of CBS.”

  The Wall Street Journal: NBC News Correspondent Was Tart-Tongued Grammar Guru

• “Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt.”

  Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman

• “This was wicked waggery, especially when it was directed to mar all the attempts of the unfortunate poet to improve his personal appearance, about which he was at all times dubiously sensitive, and particularly when among the ladies.”

  The Life of Oliver Goldsmith

• “Foote, the Aristophanes of the day, was a frequent visitor; his broad face beaming with fun and waggery, and his satirical eye ever on the lookout for characters and incidents for his farces.”

  The Life of Oliver Goldsmith

• “It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to his bulls and blunders.”

  The Life of Oliver Goldsmith

• ““My money gone to a certainty!” said Tressilian; “but as for the rest — Hark ye, my lad, I am not your school-master, but if you play off your waggery on me, I will take a part of his task off his hands, and punish you to purpose.””

  Kenilworth

• “There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.”

  The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon

• “I was winning, and was full of waggery, thinking every thing that was eccentric, and by no means a miser of my eccentricities; every one was welcome to a share of them, and I had plenty to spare after having freighted the company.”

  The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection

• “Here it was thought his broad fun, rustic waggery, and curious mastery of provincial dialect might admirably contrast with the melodramatic intensity, and the homely, but touching pathos of which in so eminent a degree he was the master.”

  The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864

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