What's the difference between jolly and merry?

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  • (6) Nick had come armed with previously unpublished details of Liberal Democrat plans for Lords reform and a blueprint for site value rating which Dave had told him was " Jolly interesting, Nick, it really is"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.

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. "