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Friday April 1, 2005

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jape \JAYP\ , noun, verb:
1. A joke or jest.
2. A trick or prank.

intransitive verb:
1. To joke; to jest.

transitive verb:
1. To make fun of; to mock.

One elderly Englishman, complete with tweed suit and cane, japed to a passport control officer: "We're not all hooligans you know."
-- Mike Underwood, "Into the fire", Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), October 13, 2003

He tried to defuse each petty crisis with a merry jape and spend each day with a life-affirming and reasonably up tempo alt. country song in his heart.
-- Chris Priestley, "Payne's grey", New Statesman, November 29, 2004

The shot was more of a jape than an assassination attempt, and was rightly treated as a laugh by the press and by the Prime Minister, who carried on as if nothing had happened.
-- Nick Cohen, "Daddy will stop at nothing to see you", New Statesman, November 15, 2004

Jape comes from Middle English, probably from Old French japer, "to yap, to chatter."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for jape

 

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