pleasantryn.

1594 R. Carew tr. J. Huarte Exam. Mens Wits vi. 82 Ieasters, and naturall counterfeiters neuer laugh at their own meriments,..for they haue an imagination so delicat, that not euen their own pleasanteries [It. facetie], can yeeld that correspondence which they require.

1701 Acct. Life in T. Stanley Hist. Philos. (ed. 3) sig. b^v Many other Pleasantries of the same Kind are mention'd in their Place.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 31. ¶2 The several Woods in Asia..will give the Audience a Sight of Monkies dancing upon Ropes, with the many other Pleasantries of that ludicrous Species.

1716 M. Davies Athenæ Britannicæ II. To Rdr. 3 With their Censorious Plaisanteries upon the greatest of Authors and Worthies.

1793 F. Burney Jrnl. 8 May (1972) II. 114 Me. de Staël..was perpetually tormenting him with her plaisanteries.

1801 Port Folio 5 Dec. 390/2 The Maid of the Oaks, a local pleasantry, by general Burcoyne, a writer, memorable for his skill in genteel dialogue, and his acquaintance with the manners of high life, was not well sustained.

1809 S. Smith Serm. I. 235 They..think that a few silly pleasantries, and slender arguments, are a sufficient preparation to decide on these proofs of a future life.

1880 J. McCarthy Hist. our Own Times III. xlvii. 431 He seldom indulged in any pleasantries that could wound or offend.

1904 J. Conrad Nostromo i. viii. 83 With his knees close together, and a kindly twinkle of drollery in his deep-set eyes, he would throw his small and ironic pleasantries into the current of conversation.

1958 J. Barth End of Road ii. 20 Pleasantries were made about my being so eager to join the faculty that I came a day early to my interview.

1988 C. McWilliam Case of Knives (1989) xxiii. 193 Mr Virtue ignored my pleasantry; he did not shrug off his grief as English people can, with a joke and a cuppa.

1602 Pleasant Comedie Prol. sig. A3 The graue Diuine calles for Diuinitie; The Ciuell student, for Philosophie: The Courtier craues some rare found historie: The baser sort, for knacks of pleasantrie.

1655 tr. C. Sorel Comical Hist. Francion ii. 23 Ravished with the pleasantry of the severall passages he had heard.

1693 J. Dryden Disc. conc. Satire in J. Dryden et al. tr. Juvenal Satires p. xxxvi There can be no pleasantry where there is no Wit.

1739 tr. C. Rollin Anc. Hist. (ed. 2) V. 82 Ridicule therefore, (or to express the same word by another, Pleasantry).

1763 C. Johnstone Reverie (new ed.) I. 256 Pumping his brain for pleasantry, and labouring for wit to entertain the sneering crowd around him.

1827 T. Carlyle Richter in Edinb. Rev. June 189 That light matter which the French call pleasantry.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iii. 328 A species of simony, which furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four generations of scoffers.

1881 R. L. Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque viii. 226 You can understand, from the look of him, that sense, not so much of humour, as of what is grimmest and driest in pleasantry.

1955 E. Waugh Officers & Gentlemen 178 He had come to the bar for stimulus, for a spot of pleasantry with ‘les girls’.

1992 G. M. Fraser Quartered Safe out Here 140 You'd have expected Grandarse to be hurling dog's abuse at 5th Div when they finally came through—but all he came out with was mild pleasantry.

1692 C. Gildon Post-boy rob'd of his Mail I. xxxvii. 129 I can never yield..that a real Passion can admit of those Pleasantries, which this Writer, as well as the Author of Letters, and Poems, amorous, and gallant are so very fond of.

1695 W. J. tr. R. Le Bossu Treat. Epick Poem iii. vi. 129 The Pleasantries which the Poem affords in its own nature independently from the Auditors, are of three sorts.

1790 G. Walker Serm. Var. Subj. II. xxi. 109 We lose the relish for the thousand pleasantries of life.

1892 Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate 4 Feb. The happy Mr. and Mrs. were speeding away in a Pullman enjoying all of the pleasantries of a honeymoon.

1934 Amer. Home July 83/1 A dozen of the lovely tall Swedish glasses make a pretty handsome donation to the many delights and pleasantries of country life.

1990 D. DiMaggio & B. Gilbert Real Grass, Real Heroes vi. 81 All of us have priceless memories of the pleasantries of all those train trips—to play 77 games a year in seven other cities.

1740 S. Richardson Pamela II. 253 To take up the good Company's Attention now, will spoil their Pleasantry.

1780 E. Burke Let. T. Burgh in Wks. (1842) II. 409 Lord North was either wholly out of the house, or engaged in other matters of business or pleasantry, in the remotest recesses of the West Saxon corner.