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Gayety; finery. [R.]

Full of gayety. Mir. for Mag.

Causing joy, pleasure, or cheerfulness; having the appearance of gayety; pleasing. Of opening heaven they sung, and gladsome day. Prior. -- Glad"some*ly, adv. -- Glad"some*ness, n. Hours of perfect gladsomeness. Wordsworth.

Joy; merriment; mirth; gayety; paricularly, the mirth enjoyed at a feast. Spenser.

A day of exemption from labor; a day of amusement and gayety; a festival day. And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday. Milton.

The state or quality of being jocund; gayety; sportiveness.

Noisy mirth; gayety; merriment; festivity; boisterous enjoyment. Chaucer. All now was turned to jollity and game. Milton. He with a proud jollity commanded him to leave that quarrel only for him, who was only worthy to enter into it. Sir P. Sidney.

Expressing mirth, or inspiring it; exciting mirth and gayety. And with his jolly pipe delights the groves. Prior. Their jolly notes they chanted loud and clear. Fairfax.

The sign or exhibition of joy; gayety; mirth; merriment; festivity. Such joy made Una, when her knight she found. Spenser. The roofs with joy resound. Dryden.

Enjoyment; gayety; festivity; joyfulness. Spenser. Some days of joyance are decreed to all. Byron. From what hid fountains doth thy joyance flow Trench.

Lack of gravity and earnestness in deportment or character; trifling gayety; frivolity; sportiveness; vanity. " A spirit of levity and libertinism." Atterbury. He never employed his omnipotence out of levity. Calamy.

To utter with spirit, animation, or gayety; to sing with spirit and liveliness. A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out By violet-hooded doctors. Tennyson.

In a merry manner; with mirth; with gayety and laughter; jovially. See Mirth, and Merry. Merrily sing, and sport, and play. Granville.

Gayety, with laughter; mirth; frolic. "Follies and light merriment." Spenser. Methought it was the sound Of riot and ill-managed merriment. Milton.

The quality or state of being merry; merriment; mirth; gayety, with laughter.

Merriment; gayety accompanied with laughter; jollity. Then will I cause to cease ... from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth. Jer. vii. 34.

Pleasure; merriment; gayety; delight; kindness. [Archaic] Shak. "Full great pleasance." Chaucer. "A realm of pleasance." Tennyson.

That which denotes or promotes pleasure or good humor; cheerfulness; gayety; merriment; especially, an agreeable playfulness in conversation; a jocose or humorous remark; badinage. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. Addison. The keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finis…

Laughing; laughable; exciting gayety; gay; merry; delightful to the view, as a landscape. In such cases the sublimity must be drawn from the other sources, with a strict caution, howewer, against anything light and riant. Burke.

Transgression of the limits of soberness or steadiness; act of levity; wild gayety; frolic; escapade. The excursion was esteemed but a sally of youth. Sir H. Wotton. Sally port. (a) (Fort.) A postern gate, or a passage underground, from the inner to the outer works, to afford free egress for troops in a sortie. (b) (Na…