half joke
half joke noun: a statement which contains elements of both jest and seriousness.
Noun
half joke (plural half jokes)
- A statement which contains elements of both jest and seriousness.
- "Well, let's wait. Perhaps the shooting will die out."
"Maybe the soldiers and settlers will die out with it," I say, another half-joke.2003, Suad Amiry, Earthquake in April, page 198
- "Well, let's wait. Perhaps the shooting will die out."
Verb
half joke (third-person singular simple present half jokes, present participle half joking, simple past and past participle half joked)
- To make a half joke.
- "You know why I think you're working with Cristos? Because once I was captured, once he got what he wanted, it would be far easier to pin it all on me, to kill my wife, dump her body where it would never be found, convince me and the world that I was crazy, no trial, just lock me up in a padded...2011, Richard Doetsch, Half-Past Dawn, page 278
Forms of half joke
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | half jokes |
| alternative form | half-joke |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | half jokes |
| present participle | half joking |
| past participle | half joked |
| past | half joked |
Questions about half joke
- What does half joke mean?
- Half joke means a statement which contains elements of both jest and seriousness.
- What part of speech is half joke?
- Half joke can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of half joke?
- The plural of half joke is half jokes.
Words near half joke in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: half joke (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “half joke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/half_joke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.