jucundity
English
Etymology
From Latin jucunditas, from jucundus. See jocundity.
Noun
jucundity (countable and uncountable, plural jucundities)
- (obsolete) Pleasantness; agreeableness.
- Sir Thomas Browne
- For the act of laughter, which is evidenced by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely voluntary, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves, but, as it may be constrained by corporal contaction in any, and hath been enforced in some even in their death, so the new, unusual, or unexpected, jucundities which present themselves to any man in his life, at some time or other, will have activity enough to excitate the earthiest soul, and raise a smile from the most composed tempers.
- Sir Thomas Browne
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for jucundity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)