droll
Americanadjective
noun
verb (used without object)
adjective
Synonym Usage
See amusing.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of droll
First recorded in 1615–25; from Middle French drolle “pleasant rascal,” perhaps from Middle Dutch drol “elf, goblin, fat little man,” ultimately from Old Norse; cf. troll 2 ( def. )
Explanation
Need a mental picture for the word droll? Think of one of those cute-homely troll dolls — blend those two words together — "doll" and "troll" — and you get droll, a description of a figure that is adorably strange and whimsically cute. The word droll comes from the archaic French word drolle, referring to a jolly good fellow. The French word comes perhaps from the Middle Dutch drolle, or "imp." The word came into English as both noun ("funny person, buffoon") and adjective ("funny, quaint, strange") in the 17th century.
Vocabulary lists containing droll
The Awakening
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Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
These sorts of surprises bloom from the center of Olivia Wilde’s latest directorial effort, “The Invite,” a chamber comedy that’s equal parts droll and disarming.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
An obvious model for the film is “Babe,” but minus the droll wit, the inspired lunacy and the filigreed plot.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
But they also find droll humor in the artifices and absurdities that some see in the genre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
The actors relish the pesky, droll, frequently adorable, sometimes incendiary individuality of their roles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2026
Every bit of it—its spindly legs, its chronically puzzled expression, its comical oven-mitt antlers—looks like some droll evolutionary joke.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Dickens fans will doubtless remember some of the droller names of the characters in his novels, elaborated in the journal he called his Book of Memoranda.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
This is a subtler gesture than a few of the show's droller tourist traps, some of them macabre, and some stereotypical to the brink of begging you to scan the background for mimes in berets.
From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2023
The plot, presented in a droller and less hysterical vein in the novel that inspired it, is a sci-fi variation on the theme of social paranoia that has long ruled teenage entertainment.
From New York Times ● Mar. 11, 2019
One of the droller exchanges came when he commented on all the mirrors in Mae's plushy bedroom.
From Time Magazine Archive
At gatherings, droller members of the audience would sometimes ask him if he could get his elements to play them a little tune.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
The drollest dairy origin story belongs to Rhoda Rindge Adamson.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2026
Its not-so-secret weapon, though, is in its driest and drollest performance — that of priceless Tracy Lynn Olivera as the dragoon’s long-suffering better half, Charlotte.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 24, 2017
The Division’s drollest commentary comes from the art directors that underplayed the post-outbreak grime.
From The Verge ● Feb. 9, 2016
The opening statement — "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is, as they say, coincidental" — is among the drollest in Chabrol's oeuvre.
From Time ● Sep. 15, 2010
This Heqet must be the drollest fellow in Egypt.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
