Jolly
adj, adv, name, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A pleasure trip or excursion; especially, an expenses-paid or unnecessary one. UK, humorous, often
"If you know what it means to be a “fidlet” going for a “jolly” in your “doo”, then you are part of an exclusive club that speaks colloquial Antarctic English."
- 2 a yawl used by a ship's sailors for general work wordnet
- 3 A marine in the English navy. dated, slang
"I'm a Jolly — 'Er Majesty's Jolly — soldier an' sailor too!"
- 4 a happy party wordnet
- 5 A word of praise, or favorable notice. archaic, slang
"'We just need to chuck him a jolly.' 'I beg your pardon?' said Faber. 'Chuck a jolly... you know! Get people on the street talking about how amazing the show is! Tell them the tickets are sold out for the next two weeks.'"
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- 6 Ellipsis of jolly boat. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
"Indeed it is nearly impossible to conceive how the small jolly they were in could have escaped destruction for a single instant."
- 1 To amuse or divert. transitive
- 2 be silly or tease one another wordnet
- 3 To praise or talk up. archaic, informal, transitive
"I do not believe in 'jollying' and 'soft soaping' a man when his work is really bad."
- 1 Full of merriment and high spirits; jovial; joyous; merry.
""Full jolly Knight he seemed […] full large of limb and every joint / He was, and cared not for God or man a point.""
- 2 Splendid, excellent, pleasant. colloquial, dated
"Jo silently notices how white and small her hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings."
- 3 Drunk. informal
- 1 full of or showing high-spirited merriment wordnet
- 1 Very, extremely. British, dated
"It’s jolly hot in here, isn’t it?"
- 1 to certain extent or degree wordnet
- 1 A female given name.
- 2 A surname.
- 3 A place name:; An unincorporated community in Pike County, Georgia, United States.
- 4 A place name:; An unincorporated community in Newton County, Missouri, United States.
- 5 A place name:; A minor city in Clay County, Texas, United States.
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- 6 A place name:; Alternative spelling of Jouli, Uttar Pradesh, India. alt-of, alternative
Example
More examples"The weather's rather jolly today."
Etymology
From Middle English joli, jolif (“merry, cheerful”), from Old French joli, jolif (“merry, joyful”). For the loss of final -f in English, compare tardy, hasty, hussy, etc. It is uncertain whether the Old French word is from Old Norse jól ("a midwinter feast, Yule", hence "fest-ive"), in which case, equivalent to yule + -ive, compare Dutch jolig (“happy, festive, frolicsome, jolly”), West Frisian joelich, joalich (“merry, jolly”), Middle High German jœlich (“hooting, jubilant”). Alternatively, the Old French adjective has been conjectured to derive from a Vulgar Latin *gaudivus (from Latin gaudeō, more at joy), in which case it would require Early Old French ⟨d⟩ /ð/ to irregularly become ⟨l⟩ in jolif rather than being dropped, which is the usual case (alternatively, /l/ may be a hiatus filler inserted into expected *joïf). A possible parallel of ⟨d⟩ to ⟨l⟩ can be seen in the French name Valois, according to one hypothesis from Latin Vadensis, though this origin is itself uncertain and disputed.
* Cognate to the French name Jolie. It derives from the Old French word joli (merriness). * In Punjab (India) it is a corruption of the word jalli.
Related phrases
More for "jolly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.