facetious
/fəˈsiːʃəs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.51 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Treating serious issues with (often deliberately) inappropriate humour; flippant.
adj
adj
humorously silly or counterproductive for the purpose of sarcastically advocating the opposite.
Example Sentences
- "Robbie's joke about Heather's appearance was just him being facetious."
- "Troutbeck is a tiny village midway between Penrith and Keswick in a very sparsely populated part of Cumberland, and it used to be said by facetious travellers that the reason why it ever had a station at all was to give the engine a rest after it had struggled up the long and trying incline from Threlkeld."
- "Glamour for its own sake is not something I have ever been particularly interested in,” Stella McCartney said backstage after her catwalk show. Which could sound like a facetious statement from a fashion designer who was, at that moment, standing among the marble-slabbed floors, elaborately frescoed ceilings and giant chandeliers of the Palais Garnier opera house, where the show was staged."
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: facétieux, facētia
Inflected Forms
more facetious (comparative)
most facetious (superlative)