droll
/drəʊl
/adjective
Curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement: his unique brand of droll self-mockery...
- If you're looking for a nice enough, quirky and droll adventure film that you won't remember on Monday, then here's your movie.
- The running commentary is informative and amusingly droll.
- They're droll, yet morbid, featuring amusing little colorful happy people behaving with perfect presence of mind as their 747 ditches into the Atlantic.
Synonyms
funny, humorous, amusing, comic, comical, mirthful, chucklesome, hilarious, rollicking;
clownish, farcical, zany, quirky, eccentric, preposterous;
ridiculous, ludicrous, risible, laughable;
jocular, light-hearted, facetious, waggish, witty, whimsical, wry, sportive, tongue-in-cheek;
entertaining, diverting, engaging, sparkling
informal wacky, side-splitting, rib-tickling
quaint, odd, strange, queer, eccentric, outlandish, bizarre, whimsical
noun archaic
A jester or entertainer; a buffoon.When English replaced Cornish as the language of Cornwall, the drolls' stories began to die out as the Cornish drolls died.
Derivatives
drollery
/ noun ...- As a slugger approaches the plate your child says, with a hint of drollery, ‘You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him.‘
- There is a sort of drollery here, beginning with ‘crumbles’.
- Bubbling over with bright ideas, visual flourishes and deadpan drollery, this is a film of wry smiles and poignant moments.
drollness
/ noun ...- I believe that the power to command is the first duty you must relieve yourself of,’ he returned, with equal drollness.
- Indeed, they were all about anarchy in atrophy, a chance to witness real drollness and intelligence in an unforced and incredibly clever manner.
- Witty as Greenberg is, he doesn't snag the drollness of Hitchcock's humor as well as he might.
drolly
/ adverb ...- ‘It's either my magnetic personality,’ he says drolly, ‘or I'm invisible.’
- ‘Well, I can't say it was a rags-to-riches story,’ he says drolly.
- ‘You get the same twelve assorted types listening wherever you do a reading in the country,’ he drolly points out.
Origin
Early 17th century (as an adjective): from French drôle, perhaps from Middle Dutch drolle 'imp, goblin'.
Droll ‘curious and unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement’, is from French drôle, perhaps from Middle Dutch drolle ‘imp, goblin’.