jeu d'esprit
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.
After a 10-year absence, Mr. Angell resumed his annual rhyming jeu d’esprit in 2008:
From Washington Post ● May 20, 2022
The story proper begins almost as a light-hearted jeu d’esprit.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2015
Ratmansky’s Violente keeps her arms closer to her chest, and deploys them more softly, so that the pointing becomes a sort of jeu d’esprit.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 8, 2015
His photograph, although a jeu d’esprit, exudes a whiff of melancholy because like all photographs it’s a reminder, with that shadow, of something gone except in the picture and our recollections of it.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2010
The emperor Hadrian, whose character is an enigma of contrasts, to judge by his last famous jeu d’esprit on his death-bed, probably died a sceptic.
From Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius by Samuel Dill