Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use droll in a sentence

13 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Droll means oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish. Example: “Very droll, minister.”

Examples of droll by meaning

adjectiveOddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.

  • Very droll, minister.

nounA funny person; a buffoon, a wag.

  • Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: The Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page...

nounThe ghost of a child, especially one who died a painful death.

  • The drolls are supposed to be the spirits of infants who died painful deaths.1938, The Ocean Highway: New Brunswick, New Jersey to Jacksonville, Florida, page 204
  • Drolls are spirits of young children who died a painful death.1941, South Carolina Folk Tales: Stories of Animals and Supernatural Beings, page 48
  • I have heard them sing the songs of their forefathers and tell of Drolls, Boo Daddies, Plat Eyes, and other terrible spirits who came back on this earth at certain times to plague the lives of men.1955, Nell S. Graydon, Tales of Edisto

More sentences with droll

  • Robertson’s droll conducting of “A Musical Joke,” Mozart’s intentionally clunky and satirical minisymphony.2009 April 6, Anthony Tommasini, “Is That in Your Job Description, Maestro?”, in New York Times. From the entry minisymphony
  • “How utterly droll!” "Not if they can help it,” Kick said.1990, Jack Fritscher, Some Dance to Remember. From the entry gayman
  • She was oblivious of all around her, and her facial twistings and scrunchings were droll.1984, Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School. From the entry twisting
  • I should not be able to say how killingly droll I found this.1916, William Dean Howells, Between the Dark and the Daylight, page 152. From the entry killingly
  • The upward dart of a droll, pointed moustache has been modern and whimsical and masqueradish.1908, Austin Brereton, The life of Henry Irving. From the entry masqueradish
  • Ay, even the droll humour and solidity of Khalid, are shaken, aroused, by the ghoulish greed, the fell inhumanity of these sharpers.1910 January 12, Ameen Rihani, “Via Dolorosa”, in The Book of Khalid, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published October 1911…. From the entry ghoulish
  • His long, rakish horns are mounted on a pedicle that extends above his head, thus accentuating the droll length of his features.1910, John T. McCutcheon, In Africa. From the entry pedicle
  • True, they in the end give the droll his immortality, but they can be a terrible affliction in the meantime to those who would live by undumpishing.1942–3, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, A Word in Your Ear; And, Just Another Word, published 1963, page 63. From the entry undumpish

Meaning of droll

  1. adjective Oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.
  2. noun A funny person; a buffoon, a wag.
  3. verb To jest, to joke.

Full definition of droll

Questions about droll in a sentence

How do you use droll in a sentence?
Droll is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “Very droll, minister.”
What is a short sentence with droll?
“Very droll, minister.”
What does droll mean?
Droll means oddly humorous; whimsical, amusing in a quaint way; waggish.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: droll (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use droll in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/droll. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.