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gaiety

   Also found in: Legal, Encyclopedia 0.01 sec.
gai·e·ty also gay·e·ty  (g-t)
n. pl. gai·e·ties also gay·e·ties
1. A state of joyful exuberance or merriment; vivacity.
2. Merry or joyful activity; festivity: making preparations for the holiday gaieties.
3. Bright color or showiness, as of dress; finery.

[French gaieté, from Old French, from gai, cheerful; see gay.]

gaiety [ˈgeɪətɪ]
n pl -ties
1. the state or condition of being merry, bright, or lively
2. festivity; merrymaking Also (esp US) gayety
Usage: See at gay

Gaiety 

See Also: CHEERFULNESS, LAUGHTER

  1. As merry as a grig —Frank Swinnerton
  2. As merry as a mouse in malt —George Garrett
  3. As merry as forty beggars —Proverb
  4. As merry as notes in a tune —Dame Edith Sitwell
  5. As merry as the day is long —William Shakespeare Shakespeare used this in both Much Ado About Nothing and The Life and Death of King John. In daily conversation, ‘cheerful’ is often substituted for ‘merry.’
  6. Gay as the latest statistics on cancer or crime —Elyse Sommer
  7. (Yours is) a spirit like a May-day song —Dorothy Parker
  8. Blithe as the air is, and as free —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  9. Cavorted like a mule let out to pasture —Borden Deal
  10. Feeling like Fourth of July —Stephen Vincent Benét
  11. The gaiety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is a crime —Agnes Repplier
  12. Gay as a funeral procession —Anon
  13. As merry as a condemned man eating his last meal —Elyse Sommer
  14. Gay as a honey-bee humming in June —Amy Lowell
  15. Gay as a parade —Hilda Conklin
  16. Gay as larks —Aesop The use of “gay as” and “merry as” comparisons to larks, crickets and just about any kind of humming or buzzing bird or insect abounds throughout the annals of literature as well as in daily speech.
  17. Heart … lighter than a flower —Elinor Wylie
  18. Making merry like grasshoppers —Robinson Jeffers
  19. A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it turns —Henry Ward Beecher Were Beecher alive today he might substitute “A car without shock absorbers” for “A wagon without springs.”
  20. (Everything went as) merrily as a marriage bell —W. Somerset Maugham
  21. A merry heart does good like a medicine —The Holy Bible /Proverbs The word ‘doeth’ has been modernized to ‘does,’ and the simile is often shortened to “A merry heart is like medicine.”
  22. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a loom of clouds, and glitters for a moment —Joseph Addison
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.gaiety - a gay feelinggaiety - a gay feeling                        
happiness - emotions experienced when in a state of well-being
jocularity, jocundity - a feeling facetious merriment
jolliness, jollity, joviality - feeling jolly and jovial and full of good humor
2.gaiety - a festive merry feeling
levity - feeling an inappropriate lack of seriousness

gaiety
Translations
gaiety [ˈgeɪɪtɪ] N
1. [of occasion, person] → alegría f
2. [of dress, costumes] → colorido m, vistosidad f

gaiety [ˈgeɪɪti] ngaieté f

gaiety
n (= cheerfulness)Fröhlichkeit f, → Heiterkeit f; (usu pl: = merrymaking) → Vergnügung f

gaiety [ˈgeɪɪtɪ] nallegria, gaiezza

gaiety, gaily gay


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Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety.
I am far from well, beloved, and have lost all my gaiety of disposition, but I send you this letter as a token of my love, devotion, and respect, Oh dear lady of my affections.
Of their elders some, by imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuade themselves that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest, but the war cry sounds hollow in their mouth; they are like poor wantons attempting with pencil, paint and powder, with shrill gaiety, to recover the illusion of their spring.
 
 
 
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