1823 J. Wilson Fire-eater vii. 192 If heaven would give every year but one fortnight's rollicking!

1830 W. Carleton Traits & Stories Irish Peasantry I. 216 There's no stop to their noise and rollokin.

1865 Sat. Rev. 25 Nov. 667/2 Lord Amberley..would never have to leave an administration headed by a Whig, for any amount of rollicking.

1916 ‘B. M. Bower’ Phantom Herd ii. 25 The cow-punchers had come in off the range and stirred the sluggish town to a full, brief life with their rollicking.

1961 D. Craig Sc. Lit. & Sc. People i. i. 26 Burns, however, transforms such rollickings into a satirical image of Presbyterian extremist heat and sectarianism.

2001 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 28 Apr. (Life section) 2/1 Carloads of city slickers are heading southwest today for a weekend of racing and rollicking in downtown Warwick.

1938 F. D. Sharpe Sharpe of Flying Squad 332 A rollicking, a telling off. (‘He gave the copper a real rollicking.’)

1958 M. K. Joseph I'll soldier no More ii. 54 Someone's dropped a clanger. Someone's going to get a rollocking.

1970 G. F. Newman Sir, You Bastard vi. 174 You were on the cards for one hell of a rollicking.

1973 Observer 18 Nov. 37/5 The unknown Fourth Division manager who gave his forward line a fearful rollicking.

2005 Men's Health (U.K. ed.) June 63/2 The key is remembering the details in your colleagues' or subordinates' lives—it makes people feel valued if you recall all the small stuff before doling out the duties or the rollockings.

1786 'Merry Andrew at Tamtallan' Anc. & Mod. Hist. Buck-Haven (new ed.) ii. 9 Now Wise Willie had a daughter, called Roliching [?1780, etc. Rolicouching]Jenny, because she spoke thick, six words at three times, half sense and half nonsense.

1808 J. Jamieson Etymol. Dict. Sc. Lang. at Rollochin A rollochin queyn, a lively young woman, who speaks freely and with sincerity.

1811 in A. Mathews Mem. C. Mathews (1838) II. viii. 148 Some of the ‘rollicking fellows’ (as they call themselves) who perform in that Court.

1858 J. Doran Hist. Court Fools 117 The outlay of this rollicking Court even frightened the Commons.

1881 W. Besant & J. Rice Chaplain of Fleet I. v. 131 He was a rollicking, jovial, boon companion.

1926 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune (Electronic ed.) 16 May Crogan was still a rollicking lad, and upon these occasions he replied flippantly to the premonishments of Wolfe.

1971 E. T. James et al. Notable Amer. Women 344/2 Real children, often her own nieces and nephews, were her models for the rollicking, mischievous girls and boys who peopled her books.

2005 Time Out N.Y. 22 Sept. 129/1 I Should Coco identified the group as the rollicking little brothers in the Britpop family.

1801 Parl. Reg. Ireland XVII. 107 That confusion of history and divinity, and civil law, and canon law, that rollocking mixture of politics and theology, and antiquity, with which he has overwhelmed the debate.

1842 R. H. Barham Dead Drummer in Ingoldsby Legends 2nd Ser. 196 The pigeon-toed step, and the rollicking motion.

1855 Sat. Rev. 17 Nov. 45/2 It is a very good article, this rollicking, noisy, fizzy letter.

1858 B. Taylor Northern Trav. xxv. 254 There was no lush, rollicking out-burst of foliage,..no easy unfolding of leaf on leaf.

1894 L. Stephen Playground of Europe (new ed.) viii. 186 It was a glacier of a rollicking spirit, given to plunge in broad curves over hidden ridges of rock.

1921 F. S. Mathews Field Bk. Wild Birds & their Music (rev. ed.) 219 No song could be more spontaneous and rollicking than that of the House Wren, though it lacks a distinct and full tone.

1949 E. Goudge Gentian Hill i. xi. 179 He was short and fat, with a round, pink and exceedingly shrewd face, twinkling black boot-button eyes and a rollicking laugh and smile.

1959 Listener 17 Dec. 1093/2 Hindemith's thirty-four-year-old Concerto for Orchestra, a rollicking piece of display music.

2006 N.Y. Times Mag. 23 Apr. 67/1 The most popular feature of the Internet for Chinese users..is the online discussion board, where long, rollicking arguments and flame wars spill on for thousands of comments.

1836 Albion 25 June 208/2 James O'Dea..was the complainant in this case, and the charged a rollicking looking Paddy Driscoll.

1911 A. Castle & E. Castle Composer i. 11 ‘Oh, but do come, Sarolta!’ coaxed a rollicking looking maiden.

1842 Fraser's Mag. 26 447 No man could sing a song more rollickingly.

1922 F. Hurst Vertical City 252 Rollickingly free of her and yet how devilishly his shoes could clat on the sidewalk.

2002 G. Lewis in Television, Regulation & Civil Society in Asia ii. i. 71 ITV features Sarakhan (Sensible Humour), a five-minute evening political lampoon by Kritsana Chaiyarat, delivered in a rollickingly savage Mr Bean style.

1860 E. Rennie Traits of Char. I. 141 The sanguine robustness of his appearance, the joyousness—I might almost say rollicking-ness of his manner.

1865 Sat. Rev. 25 Nov. 667 The jocose and rollicking chief is no more. His two successors hate jocosity and rollickingness.

1902 P. H. Fitzgerald Recoll. Dublin Castle & Dublin Society 112 All of which stories I knew well, for he had been in the habit of telling them with infinite fun and rollickingness.

2004 Hull Daily Mail (Nexis) 23 Jan. 31 Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney throw Detroit punk and Mississippi rollickingness together.