What is "jeu d'esprit"

Usage examples of "jeu d'esprit".

I mean, I play with it a little as a jeu d'esprit, but to do it for a whole volume and maintain it.

Others see the matter merely as a warrior's dark jeu d'esprit, brief, terrible, and celebratory, no more than a momentary, exultant gesture, or game, or festival, of blood and steel, and some, even, that it was merely that he was indeed hungry, and had decided to feed, in his uncouth, boorish manner, and that one event had led to another.

Buckland, I think, once indulged in the jeu d'esprit of supposing an ichthyosaur lecturing on the human skull.

Who would invent not only an anecdote but even its:` principals, as a joke, a game, a jeu d'esprit.

Who would invent not only an anecdote but even its:' principals, as a joke, a game, a jeu d'esprit.

You never knew when a little jeu d'esprit like that might cause a commotion.

I was not sure to what extent this interpretation was a jeu d'esprit.