Wednesday Word: Jocose

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Jocose - adjective

Sometimes I come across a face-palm kind of word in Words With Friends. Jocose? What does that mean, other than the bot teasing me by making jocoseness on the next turn. Try to outsmart me, huh? LOL!

Most of us are probably familiar with jocose's cousin, jocular--both words mean joking, humorous or playful actions and attributes.

Comments

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

Excellent word!

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

And then there’s jocund, meaning cheerful and lighthearted; I‘d assumed for quite some time that the Mona Lisa was known as “La Gioconda” because she was smiling.

It’s somewhat more complicated than that; turns out that the lady believed to be the subject was one Lisa del Giocondo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_del_Giocondo), née Gherardini, and the epithet references her married name—which does, however, likewise derive from the Latin jocundus (m)/jocunda (f): a happy and resonant accident.

Merriam-Webster notes further:

The Tricky Etymology of Jocund

Don't let the etymology of jocund play tricks on you. The word comes from jucundus, a Latin word meaning "agreeable" or "delightful," and ultimately from the Latin verb juvare, meaning "to help." But jucundus looks and sounds a bit like jocus, the Latin word for "joke." These two roots took a lively romp through many centuries together and along the way the lighthearted jocus influenced the spelling and meaning of jucundus, an interaction that eventually produced our Modern English word jocund in the 14th century.