Crossword clues for pleasantry
pleasantry
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pleasantry \Pleas"ant*ry\, n.; pl. Pleasantries. [F. plaisanterie. See Pleasant.] 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
finished man of the world.
--Macaulay.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"sprightly humor in conversation," 1650s, from French plaisanterie "joke, jest; joking, jesting," from plaisant (see pleasant). Related: Pleasantries.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A casual, courteous remark 2 A playful remark; a jest
WordNet
n. an agreeable or amusing remark; "they exchange pleasantries"
Usage examples of "pleasantry".
The millionaire smiled affably at this pleasantry and invited his guest to be seated.
They sipped and exchanged pleasantries for several moments before Ameer got down to business.
For several moments he and Basel managed to exchange formulaic pleasantries without once choking on them.
Gentlelady Bindweed sang softly under her breath, as she and her partner exited the Golden Lily Pleasantry Shop, each of them bearing several large, gift-wrapped boxes.
It was his wit and mirth which kept the conversation going, and the countess came in for a share of his pleasantries, while she scolded him for his familiarity.
King of the Sun and the Moon and the Rising Tide, et cetera, thanks for marrying me at last after sleeping with me for a thousand and one nights and begetting three children on me and listening while I amused you with proverbs and parables, chronicles and pleasantries, quips and jests and admonitory instances, stories and anecdotes, dialogues and histories and elegies and satires and Allah alone knows what else!
Camilla what belonged to pleasantry in this business was of short duration, When the cotillon was over, she saw nothing of Edgar.
Next day I had a pleasant dinner with the favourite, though she told me that, not having seen the duke, she could not tell me how he would take my pleasantry, which her mother resented very much.
For the sake of amusement I used to keep her for an hour or two without caring whether our pleasantries disturbed the abbe, who could hear everything we said.
About twenty minutes after Cooper and I exchanged pleasantries, Sergeant Eyer came in, looking clean and sharp.
The pleasantry made me laugh, but, unwilling that he should have the last word, I answered that he had guessed rightly, that such had been my intention, but that I had entirely altered my mind since I had seen his wife.
Mr Kyd with a merry voice and a twinkle of the eye, they might have passed as a robust pleasantry.
I think it was an eleemosynary smile, for my pleasantry seems to me a particularly basso rilievo, as I look upon it in cold blood.
It was effaced as easily as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man.
I have been perfectly pleasant to him, to Barnet, to everyone who so much as looks my way, I think that you want something more than mere pleasantry.