facetious
adjective
Simple meaning
Treating serious issues with inappropriate humour.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fuhseeshuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
fəˈsiːʃəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Treating serious issues with (often deliberately) inappropriate humour; flippant.
“Robbie's joke about Heather's appearance was just him being facetious.”
Pleasantly humorous; jocular.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Treating serious issues with (often deliberately) inappropriate humour; flippant.
Used this way, facetious is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“Robbie's joke about Heather's appearance was just him being facetious.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.