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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



... theatrical representation on the flat by the water-side. One of the actors suddenly stopped in the middle of his role, and gazing up the river, screamed out the now familiar by-word, 'Shui lai-la!' This repetition of the stock jest, with well-simulated terror, as it seemed to the merry-makers, drew shouts of laughter; but the echoes of the laugh were drowned in the roar of a deluge. I was told how the gleeful faces turned to horror as the flood ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... taken out of him. Without his gun, down on the ground and his pony out of reach—he lacked all the prime requisites of a cowboy. There was no escape, covered as he was by Bud, who had drawn his own .45, and Pocut Pete "jest natcherly caved in," as Old ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... him gravely. "Meanin' shows?" he asked, after a pause of reflection. "No, we've never shew none, as I know of. We've been asked, father 'n' I, to allow guessin' on our weight at fairs and sech, but we jedged it warn't jest what we cared ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... one night when she had crept into the attic—"'twarn't for you, an' the Bastille, an' bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook she's like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss—tell me about the subt'ranean passage we've dug under ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Cornhill in their coaches, with a guard of horse, the Earl of Lauderdale was addressed by a by-stander—"Oh, my lord, you are welcome to London! I protest, off goes your head as round as a hoop!"(1061) The ill-timed jest, which the earl passed off with a laugh, was wanting in fulfilment, for he lived to witness the Restoration and to earn the universal hatred of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe


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