droll

adj

1. Oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.

   “Very droll, minister.”

   “The Theatre of Puppets, or Marionetti—a famous company from Milan—is, without any exception, the drollest exhibition I ever beheld in my life. I never saw anything so exquisitely ridiculous.”

noun

1. (archaic)A funny person; a buffoon, a wag.

   “The lieutenant was a droll in his way, Peregrine possessed a great fund of sprightliness and good humour, and Godfrey, among his other qualifications already recited, sung a most excellent song […].”

   “Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies.”

2. The ghost of a child, especially one who died a painful death.

   “HAMILTON’S HILL, 0.4 m., a little elevation, was the starting point for the races, and is known for a wide variety of ghosts including such fearsome creatures as a 10-foot cat that explodes before the beholder’s eyes, plat-eyes in the guise of three-legged hogs and two-headed cows, boo-daddies, boo-hags, and drolls. The drolls are supposed to be the spirits of infants who died painful deaths.”

   “Drolls are spirits of young children who died a painful death. They can be heard, the Negroes say, crying piteously at night in deep swamps and deserted marshland.”

   “To the typical Negro of the Carolina coast, the night was made fearsome by hordes of spirit beings—the plat-eye, the boo-daddy and boo-hag, the drolls. […] Boo-daddies and boo-hags, were disembodied spirits, released for dread purposes, while drolls were the ghosts of children who had died under mysterious circumstances.”

   “I have heard them sing the songs of their forefathers and tell of Drolls, Boo Daddies, Plat Eyes, and other terrible spirits who came back on this earth at certain times to plague the lives of men.”

   “And whenever we heard the droll shrieking from down toward Drunken Jack Island they told us the story of Crab Boy.”

verb

1. (archaic, intransitive)To jest, to joke.

   “"Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious! But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in black and white?" / "And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of Shaws," says Alan, drolling with me; [...]”

name

1. A surname from German.