What's the difference between jocular and silly?

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.

Silly


Definition:

  • (n.) Happy; fortunate; blessed.
  • (n.) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
  • (n.) Weak; helpless; frail.
  • (n.) Rustic; plain; simple; humble.
  • (n.) Weak in intellect; destitute of ordinary strength of mind; foolish; witless; simple; as, a silly woman.
  • (n.) Proceeding from want of understanding or common judgment; characterized by weakness or folly; unwise; absurd; stupid; as, silly conduct; a silly question.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We just hope that … maybe she’s gone to see her friend, talk some sense into her,” Renu said, adding that Shamima “knew that it was a silly thing to do” and that she did not know why her friend had done it.
  • (2) And Myers is cautioned after a silly block 3.21am GMT 54 mins Besler with a long-throw for SKC but it's cleared.
  • (3) As if to prove her silly dilettantism, when a journalist asked Dasha about her favourite artists, she replied, "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names."
  • (4) Some of them, pulled together for the manifesto, are silly, or doomed, or simply there for shock value - information points in the form of holograms of Dixon of Dock Green, the legalisation of soft drugs, official brothels opposite Westminster, complete with division bells.
  • (5) I am of a similar vintage and, like many friends and fans of the series, bemoan the fact that we are generally treated by society as silly, weak, daft, soppy, prejudiced (even bigoted), risk-averse and wary of new situations.
  • (6) I had more fun with Matt Winning , delivering a silly set on the Free Fringe imagining himself the son of Robert Mugabe.
  • (7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest In an essay for the Hollywood Reporter, Camille Paglia writes that Swift promotes a ‘silly, regressive public image’.
  • (8) His selection on Twitter, he added, was “all in no particular order, off the top of my head, and the most incomplete of lists”, put together in response to Talese’s “silliness”.
  • (9) As soon as they saw how serious it was, they switched from being my silly, fun friends into being the most reliable and amazing people.
  • (10) They were all young, and it was a party house, devoted to games of hide and seek, music, silly practical jokes and food fights in the drawing room.
  • (11) As a result, one or two wrote some rather silly things in their reports,” Wilshaw said.
  • (12) ‘Silly things said by a silly man’ To be honest I really don’t care what BoJo says.
  • (13) People usually don't make silly, careless mistakes when they're motivated and working in a positive environment.
  • (14) Watching “our lads” pretending to mouth questionable lyrics about God giving the Queen near-immortal life, and her being the victor when she’s not really of fighting age, is silly.
  • (15) Imagine my relief this week then, when I found out that I can now let go of all my silly gay politics.
  • (16) We have referees who are unfamiliar with that silly "Goaltender Interference" technicality.
  • (17) The syndrome he described--a psychosis of early onset with a deteriorating course characterized by a "silly" affect, behavioral peculiarities, and formal thought disorder--not only adumbrated Kraepelin's generic category of dementia praecox but quite specifically defined the later subtype of hebephrenic, or disorganized, schizophrenia as well.
  • (18) "But they're so silly that I must say I never found them intimidating."
  • (19) Just as certain songs become inextricably associated in our minds with certain eras (before the invention of iPods, that is, after which everyone could walk around every day with all the songs in the world on shuffle), so too do silly trends.
  • (20) In 2014, she began working as a writer at Late Night with Seth Meyers; her first standup spot on that show began with a joke that typified both her silliness and confidence.