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Jest   /dʒɛst/   Listen
noun
Jest  n.  
1.
A deed; an action; a gest. (Obs.) "The jests or actions of princes."
2.
A mask; a pageant; an interlude. (Obs.) "He promised us, in honor of our guest, To grace our banquet with some pompous jest."
3.
Something done or said in order to amuse; a joke; a witticism; a jocose or sportive remark or phrase. See Synonyms under Jest, v. i. "I must be sad... smile at no man's jests." "The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts."
4.
The object of laughter or sport; a laughingstock. "Then let me be your jest; I deserve it."
In jest, for mere sport or diversion; not in truth and reality; not in earnest. "And given in earnest what I begged in jest."
Jest book, a book containing a collection of jests, jokes, and amusing anecdotes; a Joe Miller.



verb
Jest  v. i.  (past & past part. jested; pres. part. jesting)  
1.
To take part in a merrymaking; especially, to act in a mask or interlude. (Obs.)
2.
To make merriment by words or actions; to joke; to make light of anything. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
Synonyms: To joke; sport; rally. To Jest, Joke. One jests in order to make others laugh; one jokes to please himself. A jest is usually at the expense of another, and is often ill-natured; a joke is a sportive sally designed to promote good humor without wounding the feelings of its object. "Jests are, therefore, seldom harmless; jokes frequently allowable. The most serious subject may be degraded by being turned into a jest."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Jest" Quotes from Famous Books



... Adam he cured my hawgs with nothing but a sack full of green cabbage heads in January, he did," said Rufus, as he rolled his big black eyes and mysteriously shook his old head with its white kinks. "No physic a-tall, jest cabbage and a few turnips mixed in the mash. Yes, m'm, dey does go to the devil of a ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... forget its dignity; should so far descend from argument, from discussion of law to unseemly banter on the question of sex; that it should so far stoop from a canvass of the most important trial that ever took place, to a senile jest on woman, must be matter of astonishment to every candid mind in the legal fraternity, and certainly has a tendency to convince the female portion of the country that the male man is fast losing his right to the definition ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... slept upon the rug. He knew his friends, and valued them; but perhaps his most remarkable quality was his impartiality. He dispensed his favors with an even hand. He had few favorites, and called no man master. He never outstayed his welcome "and told the jest without the smile," never remaining with one person for more than two or three days at most. A calmer character, a more balanced judgment, a better temper, a more admirable self-respect,—in a word, a profounder sense of what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... as big as you," he said, "but if I was the same shape, I'd go to a bush carpenter, and get him to trim me down with an adze." Then after this jest, he resumed seriously. "Well, Ted, it is just this. Lizzie says that she likes Sydney but you do not, and that you will never stay there for more than a week at a time. Now, that isn't doing the square thing by her. You ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... child, this has been no matter for jesting; it has been serious, and we who have watched this dawning love have realized that the great drama of life, so full of tragic possibilities, is being here enacted. We do not laugh, nor jest, but with the tenderest prayers we welcome you into the possibilities of God's divinest gift of ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen


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