What's the difference between jolly and jovial?

Jolly


Definition:

  • (superl.) Full of life and mirth; jovial; joyous; merry; mirthful.
  • (superl.) Expressing mirth, or inspiring it; exciting mirth and gayety.
  • (superl.) Of fine appearance; handsome; excellent; lively; agreeable; pleasant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And he enjoyed holding court to pretty girls and jolly lads at the Academy Club, a bohemian joint he founded next to his office.
  • (2) 1.37am BST Cardinals 0 - Dodgers 0, top of 2nd Well Ryu doesn't look nearly as shaky as he did against the Braves, rather, he looks a whole lot like the jolly fellow that went 14-8 with a 3.00 ERA in the regular season.
  • (3) Spain tells UK not to lose its cool over Gibraltar in Brexit talks Read more Henry seemed like a jolly chap.
  • (4) Her teenage sons, who haven't read the book, tease her often, which is jolly; her mother, though distressed to find that Christian and Anastasia never seem to shower after sex, is delighted; even her father-in-law likes the book.
  • (5) In another part of the recording, Bloom says, in reference to a ruling from the European court of human rights: "You can torture people to death but you jolly well can't give them a full life sentence because that's against their human rights.
  • (6) Nick had come armed with previously unpublished details of Liberal Democrat plans for Lords reform and a blueprint for site value rating which Dave had told him was " Jolly interesting, Nick, it really is" before passing it to Andy Coulson.
  • (7) A few weeks ago, an official from the Cabinet Office gushed on his blog about a jolly exciting trip, a kind of pilgrimage, to Amazon and Google in Seattle and San Francisco.
  • (8) Together with his late wife Janet, he wrote 37 titles including perennial favourites The Jolly Postman and Burglar Bill, and by himself he is the author of many more, including The Pencil, and Woof!
  • (9) Stressing the jolly side of atheism not only glosses over its harsher truths, it also disguises its unique selling point.
  • (10) Debbie Jolly of Leicester, said: "Coalition ministers can manage on £145,000 per year plus expenses, but some disabled people have to try and manager on less than £31 a week.
  • (11) The Palestinian comedy team Watan a Watar have enjoyed huge success with their take on an Isis propaganda video featuring a roadblock and a quiz: incorrect answers mean instant execution but these jolly, bumbling jihadis win points to get them to Paradise.
  • (12) Given the jolly atmosphere of the holidays, the bartender allowed a dog owner to bring in their animal.
  • (13) At one level it's very gentle and quite jolly; at another, if continued assiduously, it means they are after you.
  • (14) One needs to be jolly careful – and it is appropriate in a friendly relationship to be jolly careful about reaching judgements of serious violations of IHL.” The hearings in closed court end on Friday.
  • (15) Just wide expanses of inoffensive pleasantness so strong that if any of the bloody really jolly nice people on the show were to drop their grins, their overexerted jowls would fall straight into their cake mix.
  • (16) But does it have much in common with the jolly pre-modern gourmandising recommended this week by David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum?
  • (17) When her career took off at the age of 10 – a childhood of performing in the living room led to a stint jollying around with Barney the purple dinosaur in the 90s series Barney & Friends – Gomez's mother, Mandy Cornett, became her manager, a relationship Gomez now describes as "like a Gilmore Girls bond, except the dialogue's not as clever".
  • (18) When he was found guilty of contempt of court last year for claims in his bestselling book, Once a Jolly Hangman , his youngest daughter emailed to ask: "Will they hang you Dad?"
  • (19) The 18 patients with folic acid deficiency had a significantly higher rate of megaloblasts, binucleate erythropoietic precursors, Howell-Jolly bodies, giant myelocytes, and giant metamyelocytes in bone marrow smears than the remaining 23 patients (P less than 0.05).
  • (20) But, to be fair, Sally was jolly, plus she was friendless because of the house move of a previous best friend.

Jovial


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to the god, or the planet, Jupiter.
  • (a.) Sunny; serene.
  • (a.) Gay; merry; joyous; jolly; mirth-inspiring; hilarious; characterized by mirth or jollity; as, a jovial youth; a jovial company; a jovial poem.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That cameo seemed horribly emblematic of a thoroughly underwhelming opening half which ended unadorned by a single shot on target, but almost imperceptibly something was shifting, and Klopp’s demeanour slowly shifted from jovially laid-back to scratchy and irritable.
  • (2) Across town in Le Central restaurant, nicknamed Hollande's canteen, the atmosphere is jovial.
  • (3) A former Socialist party leader, he is a jovial, wise-cracking believer in consensus politics, who aides say never loses his rag and who so hates fights that he was once nicknamed "the marshmallow" within his own party, or "Flanby", after a wobbly caramel pudding.
  • (4) The reports of Abbott recoiling from Davis do not speak of a reciprocal and jovial situation.
  • (5) Instead, the least attractive aspects of London 2012, the ZiL lanes and the Visa-only policy and McDonald's and Coca-Cola as purveyors of sustenance to a sporting nation, were smothered not only by the competition but by the ocean of good humour fostered by the joviality of the volunteers, the inspirational architecture and the attention given to the natural landscape (with apologies to those who had to move to make room for it all).
  • (6) Despite such brooding work, in person Stephens is lanky, jovially sweary, with a disconcerting habit of speaking in elegant sentences, and bookends our interview with heartfelt tributes to his wife and three children.
  • (7) One summer day in 1994, my best friend Steve – a gentle, jovial guy with the most disarming chuckle – called and asked me to meet him for lunch.
  • (8) What is both shocking and bewildering about Hunt’s jovial after-dinner remarks is that this is the considered view of someone whose life has been devoted to not taking the world for what it seems to be.
  • (9) His sister, remarkably jovial, wears black for their younger brother Vangelis, who died of nobody will say exactly what two years ago next month, aged 52.
  • (10) He was reported to have been in jovial form following the christening of his granddaughter at Staghall Church near Belturbet, Co Cavan on Boxing Day before returning to Mountjoy.
  • (11) He is courteous, almost jovial, though not quite endearing.
  • (12) For eight months we have lived on porridge and bread and smuggled yogurt,” says Nabil, a jovial clerk employed by a pharmaceutical company, who did not want his full name published for security reasons.
  • (13) An unusually jovial Putin asked the minister during the presentation on Friday how long the water had remained untouched by human hands.
  • (14) It cuts, for all its apparently relaxed joviality, against the zeitgeist of almost every other influence and impact upon these children in a digital, postmodern, post-moral society seeped in celebrity culture and the creatively pointless quest for quick-hit reward – as was fully intended by the Venezuelans who created El Sistema.
  • (15) One of the Demon’s men, a jovial Muscovite, gave us a number to call so we could tell his relatives where to find his body when he is killed.
  • (16) The front office was run by a jovial Cockney, Charles Vidler, who had been the butler at the Astors' country house, Cliveden, until he was fired for being found in Lord Astor's bed.
  • (17) On screen, he has a shrewd intensity but in person he's expansive and jovial.
  • (18) The jovial NBC Today Show anchor is one of eight local and national meteorologists the Obama administration invited to the White House for one-on-one interviews with the president.
  • (19) He was always cheerful and jovial, looking on the light side of life.
  • (20) Perhaps what Claire Alexander at the University of Manchester calls the “jovial bigotry” of Farage and his ilk has helped channel their rage.