Also 7 joque, joc, 8 joak. [Appeared in second half of 17th c., app. originally in slang or colloquial use: cf. JOKING vbl. sb., quot. 1670; app. ad. L. joc-us jest, joke, sport: cf. It. gioco ‘game, play, sport, jeast’ (Florio).]
1. Something said or done to excite laughter or amusement; a witticism, a jest; jesting, raillery; also, something that causes amusement, a ridiculous circumstance.
Practical joke, a trick or prank played upon some person usually in order to have a laugh at his expense. Phr. To cut, crack a joke; to turn a matter into a joke, etc.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 34. To have the right knack of letting off a Jogue, and of pleasing the Humsters.
1683. Kennett, trans. Erasm. on Folly, 19. Coming off with so many dry joques and biting Repartees.
1683. Dr. Edw. Hooker, Pref. Ep., to Pordage’s Myst. Div., 15. Jocs, or Witticisms, Railleries and Drolleries, Quirks and Quillets.
c. 1710. in Hearne, Collect. (O. H. S.), II. 463. His black Jokes or smutty Songs.
1726–46. Thomson, Winter, 623. The simple joke that takes the shepherd’s heart.
1741. Fielding, Ess., Conversat. Tossing men out of their chairs, tumbling them into water, or any of those handicraft jokes.
1741. Watts, Improv. Mind, I. xviii. § 17. A merry joak upon the stage.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, Wks. 1883, VII. 470. I … should not forbear to cut a joke, were I upon a scaffold.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas, III. i. ¶ 5. The best joke of all was, I did not know my master’s name.
1790. Beattie, Moral Sc., I. i. § 7. The practice of turning every thing into joke and ridicule is a dangerous levity of imagination.
c. 1835. Song, ‘Oxford Freshman.’ Next night I got drunker than ever, And sang the Black Joke at his [my Tutor’s] door.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., I. 186. All practical jokes do seem to be particularly foolish to those who suffer from them.
2. transf. An object of or matter for joking; a laughing-stock.
1791. ‘G. Gambado,’ Ann. Horsem., x. (1809), 109. I am the joke of the road wherever I go.
1823. J. F. Cooper, Pilot, I. xvi. 210. I shall be the standing joke of the mess-table, until some greater fool than myself can be found.
3. Something not earnest or serious; a jesting matter. No joke, a serious matter.
1726. Gay, Lett. to Swift, 22 Oct. I wish, I could tell you, that the cutting of the tendons of two of his fingers was a joke; but it is really so.
1737. Pope, Hor. Ep., I. ii. 261. Link towns to towns with avenues of oak, Enclose whole downs in walls, ’tis all a joke! Inexorable Death shall level all.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, IX. viii. ¶ 8. And indeed it was no joke.
1890. Guardian, 29 Oct., 1711/1. An Irish faction fight is evidently no joke.
4. attrib. and Comb., as joke-capping; joke-exchanging, -loving, -worthy adjs.; joke-fellow, one with whom a joke is shared.
1822. Galt, Sir A. Wylie, III. xxiv. 197. That English Lord and his Leddy mak him joke-fellow wi’ themselves.
1866. Ch. & State Rev., 17 Aug., 518. A very joke-worthy subject.
1883. T. Wright, Unknown Public, in 19th Cent., 283. Opportunities for using them in the way of joke-capping.
