What's the difference between jesting and jocular?

Jesting


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Jest
  • (a.) Sportive; not serious; fit for jests.
  • (n.) The act or practice of making jests; joking; pleasantry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Dawn Powell: A Time to Be Born (1942) Joseph Heller: Catch-22 (1961) Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions (1973) David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest (1996) The American comedy, generally speaking, is a scatological thing, or a repository of racial prejudice or gender stereotypes.
  • (2) Defining what constitutes merely a jest and what is of a "menacing character" has not been easy for the judges.
  • (3) In Hall’s farewell season of Shakespeare’s late romances in 1988, he led the company alongside Michael Bryant and Eileen Atkins , playing a clenched and possessed Leontes in The Winter’s Tale; an Italianate, jesting Iachimo in Cymbeline; and a gloriously drunken Trinculo in The Tempest (he played Prospero for Adrian Noble at the Theatre Royal, Bath, in 2012).
  • (4) The 2010 book was written by Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky, and is what it says on the tin: an account of a road trip with the author as he went across the US promoting his 1,100-page novel Infinite Jest, recalling the conversations the pair have and the fame that Foster Wallace is starting to experience.
  • (5) From Glasgow, Leeds , Bristol and Dublin , to New York , San Diego and Vancouver , to Perth , Melbourne and Sydney , groups of non-believers will be getting together to form their own monthly Sunday Assemblies, with the movement's founders – the standup comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans – visiting the fledgling congregations in what they are calling, only partly in jest, a "global missionary tour".
  • (6) I did not say so, thank God, even in jest, otherwise our encounter could have been even worse than it was.
  • (7) "That was totally in jest," he added, saying he would "tone down my sense of humour until I become president, because America needs to get a sense of humour".
  • (8) Green's husband Wallace, best known for the novel Infinite Jest, committed suicide at home in 2008 , and was found by Green.
  • (9) "F alsehood flies," wrote Jonathan Swift 300 years ago, "and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect."
  • (10) ‘What is truth?” said jesting Pilate – in Bacon’s famous phrase.
  • (11) It was a jibe made in jest by a man who had much fondness for him.
  • (12) In comments that a source said were largely made in jest, Johnson – who is also the Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip – attacked the former prime minister over his speech in support of Labour’s current leader Ed Miliband.
  • (13) Although this article is presented in jest, I am not above anything that works to get contributions for my newsletter.
  • (14) I saw Brand's Messiah Complex show in London the other week, in which he – in jest, of course – compares himself to Che Guevara, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Christ.
  • (15) He likes winding people up, being controversial for the sake of it and more often than not what he says is in jest.
  • (16) In jest or in earnest, there is a rank hypocrisy here that sits uncomfortably with me.
  • (17) It was planned as the much-anticipated follow-up to Infinite Jest , the teeming 1,000-page bleakly comic masterpiece that had established Wallace, at 34, as the man most likely to redefine the scope and voice of the American novel.
  • (18) One 18th-century classicist is even said to have planned to write a scholarly edition of the best-known joke book of that period, Joe Miller's Jests , in order to show that every single joke in it was descended from the ancient Laughter Lover .
  • (19) Eurozone unlocks €10.3bn bailout loan for Greece Read more I jest of course.
  • (20) A number of edits, apparently made in jest, have been picked up by the automatic twitter bot Congress Edits , which monitors Wikipedia for changes to the site made by accounts with IP addresses coming from inside the US legislature.

Jocular


Definition:

  • (a.) Given to jesting; jocose; as, a jocular person.
  • (a.) Sportive; merry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As the contest meandered and the stadium went close to quiet there was a jocular moment when Pardew hopped in irritation at a United challenge and the manager dropped his ever-present notebook on the pitch.
  • (2) The tone was jocular, but the intent deadly serious, as becomes clear talking to Jón and Einar Örn Benediktsson, who used to sing alongside Björk in the Sugarcubes and is now Reykjavik's head of culture and tourism.
  • (3) You kindly suggested that it would be helpful if I put them in writing – despite the Freedom of Information Act!” A jocular reference?
  • (4) Welby, who was enthroned as a bishop last November, presented a jocular, relaxed face to the press as he appeared for the first time at Lambeth Palace, surrounded by the portraits of archbishops past.
  • (5) At this time I can’t say anything about transfers,” he said before turning jocular.
  • (6) The cast of The Five vacillated between feigned solemnity and jocular NFL pregame oafishness.
  • (7) Until now, the answer would have been for Network Rail to simply borrow: its spending on the never-never has largely escaped public attention, despite the industry jocularly speaking of the "Network Rail credit card".
  • (8) Alito was not amused by Kagan’s jocular stand for precedent, and declared the original Brulotte “a bald act of policymaking”.
  • (9) The tone was jocular, but the president’s words on Friday betrayed mounting frustration with opponents in his own party who could derail perhaps the biggest domestic policy goal of his last two years in office.
  • (10) The auteur that's matched Malick for headlines this year, Lars von Trier, banned by the festival's board of directors after mounting a jocular defence of Adolf Hitler in an official press conference, was given a consolation prize of sorts when Kirsten Dunst picked up the award for best actress for her part in Melancholia.
  • (11) Poroshenko’s treatment in Washington will also invite comparison to Trump’s warm and jocular Oval Office meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, on May 10, the day after firing the FBI director, James Comey.
  • (12) An overjoyed Mark Sampson was in jocular mood after his England side reached a significant milestone in their history, posting their first knockout stage victory in any World Cup finals with a 2-1 win over Norway in Ottawa.
  • (13) Catch it on one of the 300-odd UK screens it opened across yesterday, and witness a jocular salute to the redemptive power of youth, rebellion and getting fucked-up.
  • (14) Although schizoaffective manic patients resembled manics in their tendency to show combinatory thinking, their productions lacked the jocularity of the manics.
  • (15) It all sounds too easy, a bit jocular, there's more assertion than proof.
  • (16) Derived from The Wizard of Oz , the term "friend of Dorothy" (or FOD) was for many years a carefully guarded euphemism in homosexual circles, until in the 1980s it began to be used openly and jocularly.
  • (17) Last summer he described his development as a writer in a typically jocular column for the Guardian Review book club, which featured the first of his Culture novels, Use of Weapons.
  • (18) Trust in John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, has not been bolstered by jocular remarks envisaging the BBC’s demise as “a tempting prospect” .
  • (19) Corbyn will face May at prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons for the first time on Wednesday, and said he expected it to be a less jocular affair than under David Cameron.
  • (20) Indeed in the course of a single phone call he would veer alarmingly from bonhomie, to bullying, to pleading and then back to a jocular mood.