levity

English

WOTD – 23 July 2012, 23 July 2013, 23 July 2014, 23 July 2015

Etymology

Coined in 1564, from Latin levitās (“lightness, frivolity”), from levis (“lightness (in weight)”).[1] Cognate to lever, and more distantly, light.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ˈlɛ.vɪ.ti/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Noun

levity (usually uncountable, plural levities)

Fishermen joking around with a fish and a gas mask during World War I
  1. A lightness of manner or speech, frivolity; flippancy; a lack of appropriate seriousness; an inclination to make a joke of serious matters.
    Antonym: gravity
    An attempt to inject a little levity into the proceedings.
  2. (obsolete) A lack of steadiness.
  3. The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.
    • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN:
      Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity […]
    • 1838, Robert Montgomery Bird, Peter Pilgrim:
      […] it would really seem as if there was something nomadic in our natures, a principle of levity and restlessness […]
    • 1869, Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science, 1.1.12:
      Hydrogen […] rises in the air on account of its levity.
  4. (countable) A lighthearted or frivolous act.
    • 1722 March, H[enry] F[oe] [pseudonym; Daniel Defoe], A Journal of the Plague Year: […], London: […] E[lizabeth] Nutt […]; J. Roberts […]; A. Dodd […]; and J. Graves […], →OCLC:
      For though it be something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were many ways lessened.
    • 1872, J. Fenimore Cooper, The Bravo‎[1]:
      […] or do the people joy less than common in their levities?"
    • 1882, H.D. Traill, Sterne‎[2]:
      His incorrigible levities had probably lost him the countenance of most of his more serious acquaintances […] .

Derived terms

Translations

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Translations to be checked

References

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “levity”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
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