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Which of these is associated with levity?

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levity

American  

[lev-i-tee] / ˈlɛv ɪ ti /

noun

• levities
  plural

1. 

   lightness of mind, character, or behavior; lack of appropriate seriousness or earnestness.

   Synonyms:

   giddiness, triviality, flippancy, frivolity

2. an instance or exhibition of this.

   Synonyms:

   giddiness, triviality, flippancy, frivolity

3. fickleness.

4. lightness in weight.

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levity British  

/ ˈlɛvɪtɪ /

noun

1. inappropriate lack of seriousness

2. fickleness or instability

3. archaic lightness in weight

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• levities
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of levity

1555–65; < Latin levitās lightness, frivolity, equivalent to levi ( s ) light + -tās -ty ²

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

levity levities

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

Velvet-coated sculptures of cactuses and otherworldly beaded plants provide some of the much needed levity that the show so hopes to achieve.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 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

There was levity as well: “I wish for a new game in Poki,” one tag read; “I wish for you to have a wish come true,” read another.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026

“Okay, levity over. Are you going to wire me?”

From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

He is an aristocrat, and he writes—better than any—of the aristocracy; and yet, in the long result, is it of his well-bred levities and of his pleasantly-housed, lightly-living people, that one comes to think?

From Suspended Judgments Essays on Books and Sensations by John Cowper Powys

It was so sure to be one of those frivolous little levities which jar so painfully on serious feelings.

From The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly 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

Their selection has uniformly tended either to inform and enlighten the understanding, to inculcate the purest lessons of morality, or to unbend the mind with innocent levities.

From The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository by Various

But to whatever levities he has been betrayed, it does not appear that his principles were ever corrupted, or that he ever lost his belief of revelation.

From The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II by Samuel Johnson

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Related Words

• frivolity
• giddiness
• hilarity
• mirth
• repartee

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