he answered facetiously
he was joking and not serious
TRANSLATION
he answered facetiously = er antwortete scherzhaft --- GOOGLE INDEX (he answered) facetiously: approximately 225,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Stephen T. Early, White House press secretary, emphasized today that the president was speaking FACETIOUSLY when he talked of his new right to claim an annual pension of $37,500 for life by paying only a few dollars a year in the period between now and the end of his term in the White House.
(New York Times)
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Another of their songs was the FACETIOUSLY titled Salam Salami, so-named after the group discovered that its original lyrics, with words taken from the Bible, broke Eurovision Song Contest rules on suitable content.
BBC News
(New York Times)
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Another of their songs was the FACETIOUSLY titled Salam Salami, so-named after the group discovered that its original lyrics, with words taken from the Bible, broke Eurovision Song Contest rules on suitable content.
BBC News
Did you
know?
facetiously
adverb
- not serious about a serious subject, in an attempt to be amusing or to appear clever
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
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WORD ORIGIN
Facetious (circa 1592) is from the French facétieux, from facétie "a joke," from the Latin facetia, from facetus "witty, elegant," of unknown origin, perhaps related to facis "torch." It implies a desire to be amusing or humorous, often when it is unwanted or untimely.
To speak facetiously is to try to add humour to something serious. Depending on who is listening, this may or may not work since everyone has a different sense of humour. A facetious comment typically has an element of truth to it, which helps make it funny. Or as T.S. Elliot said, "Humour is also a way of saying something serious."
So what is humour exactly? The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as "the ability to be amused by things, the way in which people see that some things are amusing, or the quality of being amusing."
That may be true today, but what many of us don't think about is that humour stems from the Old French "humor" and Latin "umor," meaning body fluid. In ancient and medieval physiology, it referred to any of the four body fluids" (blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy or black bile) whose relative proportions were thought to determine our state of mind.
This eventually led to a sense of "mood, temporary state of mind." When Shakespeare was writing, he used the adjective humorous to describe a bad mood. The Great Bard of Stratford would probably be amused to find out just how much the definition has changed.
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SYNONYMS
tongue-in-cheek, kidding, amusing, blithe, clever, comic, comical, droll, dry, fanciful, farcical, flippant, frivolous, funny, gay, humorous, ironic, irreverent, jesting, jocose, jocular, joking, joshing, laughable, ludicrous, merry, not serious, playful, pleasant, pulling one's leg, punning, putting one on, ridiculous, salty, sarcastic, satirical, smart, sprightly, waggish, whimsical, wisecracking, witty, wry
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ANTONYMS
formal, grave, serious, unfunny
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
Talking facetiously is very risky internationally, where meaning can be so easily misunderstood.."
adverb
- not serious about a serious subject, in an attempt to be amusing or to appear clever
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
WORD ORIGIN
Facetious (circa 1592) is from the French facétieux, from facétie "a joke," from the Latin facetia, from facetus "witty, elegant," of unknown origin, perhaps related to facis "torch." It implies a desire to be amusing or humorous, often when it is unwanted or untimely.
To speak facetiously is to try to add humour to something serious. Depending on who is listening, this may or may not work since everyone has a different sense of humour. A facetious comment typically has an element of truth to it, which helps make it funny. Or as T.S. Elliot said, "Humour is also a way of saying something serious."
So what is humour exactly? The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as "the ability to be amused by things, the way in which people see that some things are amusing, or the quality of being amusing."
That may be true today, but what many of us don't think about is that humour stems from the Old French "humor" and Latin "umor," meaning body fluid. In ancient and medieval physiology, it referred to any of the four body fluids" (blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy or black bile) whose relative proportions were thought to determine our state of mind.
This eventually led to a sense of "mood, temporary state of mind." When Shakespeare was writing, he used the adjective humorous to describe a bad mood. The Great Bard of Stratford would probably be amused to find out just how much the definition has changed.
---
SYNONYMS
tongue-in-cheek, kidding, amusing, blithe, clever, comic, comical, droll, dry, fanciful, farcical, flippant, frivolous, funny, gay, humorous, ironic, irreverent, jesting, jocose, jocular, joking, joshing, laughable, ludicrous, merry, not serious, playful, pleasant, pulling one's leg, punning, putting one on, ridiculous, salty, sarcastic, satirical, smart, sprightly, waggish, whimsical, wisecracking, witty, wry
---
ANTONYMS
formal, grave, serious, unfunny
---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
Talking facetiously is very risky internationally, where meaning can be so easily misunderstood.."
