Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To joke or quip.
  • intransitive verb To make sport of.
  • noun A joke or quip.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To jest; joke.
  • To deride; gibe; mock; befool.
  • noun A joke; jest; gibe.
  • noun A trick; wile; cheat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb obsolete To jest; to play tricks; to jeer.
  • transitive verb To mock; to trick.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To jest; play tricks; joke; jeer.
  • verb transitive To mock; deride; gibe; trick; befool.
  • noun a joke

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English japen, probably from Old French japer, to yap, chatter, nag, of imitative origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English japen ("to joke, play tricks"), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French japer ("to bark, howl, scream") (possibly conflated with Old French gaber ("to mock, deride"), see gab), related to Old Provençal japar, jaupar ("to bark, yelp, yap"), probably of Germanic origin, related to Old Saxon galpōn ("to cry loudly, make a noise, brag") (Low German galpen ("to bark, howl, scream")), Middle High German gelpfen ("to scream, bark, boast, proclaim"), Old Norse gjálpa ("to yelp") (Swedish dialectal galpa ("to cry, screech")). More at yelp, yawp, yap.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Hilarity unconfined!

    October 12, 2007

  • There's a big furniture store in Darwin, Australia, named Jape. Uproarious lounges?

    November 21, 2007

  • Well, I hear some of the furniture is naked, and that's always funny.

    July 3, 2008

  • ROTCL.

    July 3, 2008

  • "The word fuck is first found in a dictionary in 1598, when it was one of five synonyms given to translate the Italian word fottere (the others were jape, sard, swive, and occupy)."

    - Jesse Sheidlower, Can a Woman "Prong" a Man?, slate.com, 1 Oct 2009.

    October 6, 2009