joke.
An amusing story.
Meaning & usage
An amusing story.
Something said or done for amusement, not in seriousness.
It was a joke!
A laughably worthless thing or person; a sham.
Your effort at cleaning your room is a joke.
The president was a joke.
Something that is far easier or far less challenging than expected.
The final exam was a joke.
Where this word comes from
From Latin iocus (“joke, jest, pastime”), from Proto-Italic *jokos (“word, (playful?) saying”), from Proto-Indo-European *yokos (“word, utterance”), from ultimate root Proto-Indo-European *yek- (“to speak, utter”) (of which distant cognates include Proto-Celtic *yextis (“language”) (Breton yezh (“language”) and Welsh iaith (“language”)) and German Beichte (“confession”)). Cognate with French jeu, Italian gioco, Portuguese jogo, Spanish juego, Romanian joc, English Yule, Danish Jule, Norwegian Bokmål Jul, Swedish Jul, and Norwegian Nynorsk jol.
To do or say something for amusement rather than seriously.
I didn’t mean what I said — I was only joking.
To dupe in a friendly manner for amusement; to mess with, play with.
Relax, man, I'm just joking with you.
To make merry with; to make jokes upon; to rally.
to joke a comrade
Where this word comes from
From Latin iocus (“joke, jest, pastime”), from Proto-Italic *jokos (“word, (playful?) saying”), from Proto-Indo-European *yokos (“word, utterance”), from ultimate root Proto-Indo-European *yek- (“to speak, utter”) (of which distant cognates include Proto-Celtic *yextis (“language”) (Breton yezh (“language”) and Welsh iaith (“language”)) and German Beichte (“confession”)). Cognate with French jeu, Italian gioco, Portuguese jogo, Spanish juego, Romanian joc, English Yule, Danish Jule, Norwegian Bokmål Jul, Swedish Jul, and Norwegian Nynorsk jol.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.