facetious

From French facétieux, from Latin facētia (“jest, wit, humor”), from facētus (“witty, jocose, facetious”).

• IPA^(key): /fəˈsiːʃəs/

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• Rhymes: -iːʃəs
• Hyphenation: fa‧ce‧tious

facetious (comparative more facetious, superlative most facetious)

1. Treating serious issues with (often deliberately) inappropriate humour; flippant.

   Robbie's joke about Heather's appearance was just him being facetious.

   • 1951 October, “Notes and News: The Harmonium at Troutbeck”, in Railway Magazine, page 709:

     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.

   • 2017 October 2, Jess Cartner-Morle, “Stella McCartney lays waste to disposable fashion in Paris”, in the Guardian‎:

     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.

2. Pleasantly humorous; jocular.
3. (Of an idea or statement) humorously silly or counterproductive for the purpose of sarcastically advocating the opposite.

• See also Thesaurus:witty

• “facetious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “facetious”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “facetious”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.