What's the difference between frolic and merry?

Frolic


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of levity; dancing, playing, or frisking about; full of pranks; frolicsome; gay; merry.
  • (n.) A wild prank; a flight of levity, or of gayety and mirth.
  • (n.) A scene of gayety and mirth, as in lively play, or in dancing; a merrymaking.
  • (v. i.) To play wild pranks; to play tricks of levity, mirth, and gayety; to indulge in frolicsome play; to sport.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is not a time to be engaged in a frolic,” he says.
  • (2) If ministers have ordered the public service to pursue this anti-democratic frolic it’s a clear abuse of power.
  • (3) Known for his flamboyant verbal attacks and overturning even the largest electoral majorities of his opponents, he has taken in everything from US senate committee hearings to feline frolics in Celebrity Big Brother.
  • (4) The flicker and dazzle was conducive to hallucinatory drugs and the hi-tech fun 'n' frolics found the perfect interzone between futurism and regression to childhood.
  • (5) Even then a madcap day was not done with folly and frolic as France, on their own line, 20 points down and with nothing at all to gain, tapped and ran.
  • (6) Instead of a sober inquisitorial process it descended into an adversarial attack, and instead of a search for the truth we witnessed taxpayer-funded lawyers on a frolic, cross-examining police officers as if they were on trial.” King cited the cross-examination of a senior police commander as an example of lawyers “twisting words” and grandstanding to the media.
  • (7) The indulgence of knights and dames: nostalgia for empire, a frolic that does nothing beyond telling voters Abbott is too in love with the past to understand the future.
  • (8) Girls laugh and frolic joyfully in the water, their brightly coloured jilbabs soaking as the tide comes in.
  • (9) Look at it again, if you doubt me - he's the heart and head of the picture, and he is delighted to realise that North By Northwest is a frolic, a dance in mid-air, a fabulous absurdity.
  • (10) If he responds that it has been a thrill to be the first Liberal in many, many decades to be entitled deputy prime minister, then he will expose himself to the accusation that he is on a power frolic while thousands of voters are suffering the effects of spending cuts, tax rises and job losses.
  • (11) Hours later a criminal case relating to Mr Skuratov's alleged sexual frolics was opened, which was used as the basis for Mr Yeltsin's decree ordering his suspension.
  • (12) When I was a minister, I would never have countenanced my chief of staff going to such a meeting without my imprimatur and my approval so I think a question does need to be answered whether the chief of staff was there on a frolic of his own or with the imprimatur of the deputy leader.
  • (13) As the transfer window gasps and sweats its way through the usual high-summer Sahara of inanity there is a newfound starchiness about Spurs’ recruitment, a rolling back from all the fun and frolic towards the youth-oriented austerity promised by Daniel Levy in the spring.
  • (14) Brooke, more deeply confused than ever, composed a poem, Beauty on Beauty, celebrating their moonlit frolics, but when he was alone with Gardner, his compliments were at best ambiguous.
  • (15) Tony Abbott will spend the early part of the coming week in a targeted outreach effort with ethnic minorities in Sydney and Melbourne in an effort to build local support for the Coalition’s counter-terrorism measures, and also soothe a grassroots backlash prompted by the government’s early frolic on hate speech.
  • (16) He is an opposition politician.” Another government minister said Farage was clearly “on a frolic of his own”, adding that high-level visits were already being planned.
  • (17) Paragliders sail overhead, children frolic in the shallow waves and a camel train carrying sunburned Europeans ambles down Sousse beach as the sun hits its midday peak.
  • (18) You can still work while the little ones frolic in the sand.
  • (19) The first surgical anesthetics were a consequence of the resulting student "ether frolics."
  • (20) The Australian Council of Trade Unions condemned the “narrow” terms of reference, saying the government had “embarked on a $100m frolic which is aimed at damaging unions”.

Merry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Laughingly gay; overflowing with good humor and good spirits; jovial; inclined to laughter or play ; sportive.
  • (superl.) Cheerful; joyous; not sad; happy.
  • (superl.) Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight; as, / merry jest.
  • (n.) A kind of wild red cherry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I did a quick survey of friends' and neighbours' families and found 11 young people and three men in their 40s and 50s on this merry-go-round.
  • (2) The grotesque merry-go-round of more people selling fewer overpriced homes is in full swing.
  • (3) On hearing the Rolf Harris verdicts, I felt vengeful, like many, I expect – condemning this man who led the public a merry dance and enjoyed enormous success while perpetrating abuse.
  • (4) Steph Merry, head of marine renewables at the Renewable Energy Association, said last year that only the giant barrage made sense.
  • (5) Interesting that there should be so many applications who are, according to the Merry Hill store, of an “incredibly high” standard, and so soon after graduation.
  • (6) Dinner guests were serenaded by opera singer Renee Fleming, a triple-Grammy award-winning soprano, who sang Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and the Puccini aria O Mio Babbino Caro.
  • (7) Banks stopped lending almost overnight, and the Wilsons' property merry-go-round suddently started looking increasingly shaky.
  • (8) Merry Go 'Round was praised by Katy Perry and a song that Musgraves co-wrote, Undermine , was played on the TV series Nashville , shown in the UK on Channel 4.
  • (9) With the private sector now calling the tune on affordable housing, while hiding the score in a locked room, it’s not hard to see why the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, recently told his members that developers are “leading local authorities on a merry dance”.
  • (10) Amid all the schadenfreude, it’s worth remembering that two years ago, Arsène Wenger and his merry men were similarly derided after suffering a comical opening day home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, before going on to win eight and draw one of their next nine league matches.
  • (11) Allowing for the odd lapse – such as his terrible musical version of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2006 – he has done much fine work.
  • (12) Interviewed about the cuts and the economic outlook on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday , Osborne looked grim and statesmanlike in repose – he has grown fleshier in office – but every time he began to speak his dimpled mouth formed a half-smile and his quick eyes were almost merry.
  • (13) A two-part German-South African co-production based on the bestselling Kate Mosse novel, it's a window-rattling potboiler bubbling with ancient religious conspiracies, comely medieval wenches, comely 21st-century academics, fogbanks of swirly past-times skulduggery, evil pharmaceutical CEOs in 10 denier tights, priapic chevaliers and, verily, a script that does dance a merry jig upon the very phizog of credibility.
  • (14) We decided we wanted to offer it to a young asylum seeker.” At the Paris parish of Saint Merry to which and her husband, Philippe, belong, Pépin had heard of the Welcome to France project run by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
  • (15) "And going on that IVF merry-go-round with all the drugs and the stress, given the limited return ..." We also need to confront our illusions about having a genetic child if we are going to put so much faith in medical solutions, he adds.
  • (16) The last time he quit, two years ago as general election coordinator, he told Miliband: “After nearly 30 years of this, I feel like I’ve seen the merry-go-round turn too many times.” Unite had hijacked the selection process for the candidate for West Falkirk in favour of Watson’s office manager, Karie Murphy.
  • (17) At 14 she was high jumping 1.80m, she'd broken Katharine Merry's schools record, there was no hiding after that.
  • (18) Outside, a more than faintly surreal urban beach scene in a June downpour: battered garden chairs and tables, dripping merry-go-round horse, Cinderella's pumpkin.
  • (19) Given the attackers have only released a slice of the 100 terabytes of information they claim to have, Sony and its workers are set for a not-so-merry Christmas.
  • (20) Smoke, drink and make merry On the other hand, the British war veteran Henry Allingham had wildly differing advice (though he agrees on the smoking, at least), putting his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women. "