a. Obs. Forms: 5 iocande, 5–6 iocaunt(e, 6–7 iocant. [In form jocant, app. ad. L. jocānt-em, pr. pple. of jocārī (rarely jocāre) to jest, joke; but, in form jocande, prob. a corruption of joconde, JOCUND.] Mirthful, merry, jocund.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., xxxi. 116 (Harl. MS.). When the knyght harde this, he was iocaunt & murye.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VI. clxxxvi. 186. Iocande and mery tydynges out of Englande.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 218/2. The moonks [of Canterbury] on the other side were as brag and iocant.
1628. J. Rous, Diary (Camden), 28. The duke … was very jocant and well pleased.
1687. J. Norris, Coll. Misc., 87. And as they sung and play’d, the jocant orbs danc’t round.
So † Jocantry [cf. pleasantry], mirth, merriment. Obs.
16[?]. H. More, Such Jocantry … is but like the dancing of men and women in an unswept room. Ibid. (1664), Myst. Iniq., II. I. xv. Two notorious Specimens of that Jocantry and Festivity, as I may so speak, that is sometimes observable in Divine Providence.
