levity
Americannoun
-
levities
plural
-
lightness of mind, character, or behavior; lack of appropriate seriousness or earnestness.
- Synonyms:
- giddiness, triviality, flippancy, frivolity
-
an instance or exhibition of this.
- Synonyms:
- giddiness, triviality, flippancy, frivolity
-
lightness in weight.
noun
-
inappropriate lack of seriousness
-
fickleness or instability
-
archaic lightness in weight
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of levity
1555–65; < Latin levitās lightness, frivolity, equivalent to levi ( s ) light + -tās -ty 2
Explanation
Joking that your dead grandmother "never looked better" could inject some levity, or frivolity, into her funeral, but your relatives might find your joke inappropriate to the occasion. Levity literally means "lightness," and it's often an attempt to inject some lightness or humor into an otherwise somber situation. Telling your Aunt Edna a joke while she recuperates from a skiing accident could provide the levity needed to brighten her mood. Yet levity is often used to describe humor that's not appropriate to the occasion, like telling jokes during a funeral.
Vocabulary lists containing levity
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Grade 12, List 1
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The Hunger Games
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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:
Both have earned fandoms by injecting levity into managing each election’s data flood.
From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2026
In a nice moment of levity in another tense debate, comedian Joe Lycett reminded the traitors - and specifically Hesmondhalgh - that he would "like to be recruited at some stage".
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
She works as a healthcare clown for Boston Children’s Hospital on the side and continues to live by the clowning code: be open-minded and take life with a spoonful of levity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
In our dire age, a little bit of levity can often feel like a wager, staking your bets on an audience’s bandwidth for fun.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
“Okay, levity over. Are you going to wire me?”
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
He assumed certain 'levities'—I suppose the word will do—to mean more than levities; he construed indiscretions into grave faults, and faults into crimes.
From The Fortunes Of Glencore by Charles James Lever
I would I could see the face of him at the thought of a long-legged lass in such a predicament! to say nothing of the levities of your affectionate daughter, and his respectful friend.’
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The levities of life always puts me on that thrack, just as too bright a day reminds me to take out an umbrella with me."
From The Fortunes Of Glencore by Charles James Lever
Shall I delight him by memories of home and of long ago, or shall I shock him by the little levities of foreign manner?
From The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II by Charles James Lever
Besides all this, the untravelled Englishman—and such was Glencore when he married—never can be brought to understand the harmless levities of foreign life.
From The Fortunes Of Glencore by Charles James Lever
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
