levity
nounUK, US /ˈlɛ.vɪ.ti/
Etymology Coined in 1564, from Latin levitās (“lightness, frivolity”), from levis (“lightness (in weight)”). Cognate to lever, and more distantly, light.
1
Usually A lightness of manner or speech, frivolity; flippancy; a lack of appropriate seriousness; an inclination to make a joke of serious matters.
- An attempt to inject a little levity into the proceedings.
2
Obsolete, Usually A lack of steadiness.
3
Usually The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.
- Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity […]1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN:
- […]it would really seem as if there was something nomadic in our natures, a principle of levity and restlessness […]1838, Robert Montgomery Bird, Peter Pilgrim:
1 more example
- Hydrogen […] rises in the air on account of its levity.1869, Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science, 1.1.12:
4
Usually A lighthearted or frivolous act.
- For though it be something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were many ways lessened.1665, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, Gutenberg:
- […] or do the people joy less than common in their levities?"1872, J. Fenimore Cooper, The Bravo:
1 more example
- His incorrigible levities had probably lost him the countenance of most of his more serious acquaintances[…1882, H.D. Traill, Sterne:
- Derived terms
- levitous