0 something that is said or done in order to be funny: --
His proposal was no jest - he was completely sincere.
1 to say something intended to be funny: --
Would I jest about something so important?
2 a joke: --
One of the oldest jests in history is the silly excuse for the unwanted child.
I have been jesting, but there is a serious issue.
Inexpensive jests about hypothetical millionaires have very little in them beyond the amusement of the moment.
I chaffed about their going and made jests about it, but since they came back they have written reports of 30,000 words each.
However, it is also a result of his seemingly unquenchable appetite - in a further jest discussed below he destroys the dairy while glutting himself on its contents.
Everything is just disguise, play, jest, flirtation and irony: things that ought to be in every way more difficult to grasp than the usual ordinariness of life.
They are endured as tolerances for pain and ambiguity permit, and then dismissed - sometimes with solemnity, sometimes with a jest - from sight and mind.
In fact, the jest reveals a level of mental compulsion that verges on psychosis.