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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
frivolity
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Your frivolity is out of place on such a solemn occasion.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Beyond this opened a small glass-sided cubicle from which a senior clerk could watch for frivolity among the underlings.
▪ If our foreign services waste their time on such frivolity, why have them?
▪ John somewhat disapproves of the frivolity.
▪ They have wondered about the urgency of numerous products of great frivolity.
▪ To be a man apart, he must not be distracted by the frivolities of the world and he must be educated.
▪ Wickham thought it extraordinary how the frivolity of the journalists was spreading.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Frivolity

Frivolity \Fri*vol"i*ty\, n.; pl. Frivolities. [Cg. F. frivolit['e]. See Frivolous.] The condition or quality of being frivolous; also, acts or habits of trifling; unbecoming levity of disposition.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
frivolity

1796, from French frivolité, from Old French frivole "frivolous," from Latin frivolus (see frivolous).

Wiktionary
frivolity

n. 1 frivolous act 2 state of being frivolous

WordNet
frivolity
  1. n. the trait of being frivolous; not serious or sensible [syn: frivolousness] [ant: seriousness]

  2. something of little value or significance [syn: bagatelle, fluff, frippery]

  3. acting like a clown or buffoon [syn: buffoonery, clowning, harlequinade, prank]

Usage examples of "frivolity".

With the Ayuntamiento debt outstanding andwiththe stipend I am sending you, there is nothing left for frivolities.

He does not need to try perilous experiments with his own soul in order to make sure that lust defiles, that avarice hardens, that frivolity empties, that selfishness cankers the heart.

I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess.

Sometimes Fila used to tint it for her with extract of camomile, but now she has become fond of this brush of whitewash on her mass of fair hair, a touch of frivolity above a face slackened by impotence.

Tony worked hard, helping his father in their olive groves and with the pigeons, spending all his time in the company of birds and old men, having no time, or finding no time, for the frivolities that consumed others.

There is a medium between the rigid Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and the absolute waste of the day of rest in mere pleasure and frivolity.

Sophie saw the schoolteacher looking at her waved hair, her light blue gown, and she realized Miss Travers was seeking evidence of frivolity.

Lindsey that Yun Yun had probably never had a day of frivolity in her life.

French way of life seemed devoted to little else but appearances and frivolity, everybody bent on a good time, going to the theater, to concerts, public shows and spectacles.

Yet I think it is not a distorted vision which enabled me, looking in from the old fortifications, to see Paris not merely as the capital of art and of a great modern language and literature, as those who live there see her, nor as the centre of gayety and frivolity, as so many of my own countrymen see her, but as the parent of fruitful wildernesses, as a patron of pioneers, as the divinity of the verges, as the godmother of a frontier democracy.

And their frivolity condemned himthe left-behind shoes, the cracked mirrors, the thick broken televisions and sunburned curtains.

I was increasingly aware of the eternal frivolity of the populace, mocking and malicious like the people of Alexandria, and of the stupidity of their so-called intellectual activities.

They're too small and their orbits are too irregular to make them of much use in that regard, and like most relatively new, rapidly expanding colonies, this one had no resources to spare on scientific frivolities.

On the one hand, she felt almost hysterical with relief, buoyed to the point of frivolity over having the sword that had hung over the family's future for the past months all but effectively removed.

The essay subject this week had been “One man's meat is another man's poison", and Clowes, whose idea of English Essay was that it should be a medium for intempestive frivolity, had insisted on his beginning with, “While I cannot conscientiously go so far as to say that one man's meat is another man's poison, yet I am certainly of opinion that what is highly beneficial to one man may, on the other hand, to another man, differently constituted, be extremely deleterious, and, indeed, absolutely fatal.