jeu d'esprit
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Still, there is one difference: Irregulars regard such playful ingenuity as merely an intellectual game, a literal jeu d’esprit.
From Washington Post • Apr. 21, 2023
The story proper begins almost as a light-hearted jeu d’esprit.
From Washington Post • Jul. 15, 2015
Ratmansky’s Violente keeps her arms closer to her chest, and deploys them more softly, so that the pointing becomes a sort of jeu d’esprit.
From The New Yorker • Jun. 8, 2015
His photograph, although a jeu d’esprit, exudes a whiff of melancholy because like all photographs it’s a reminder, with that shadow, of something gone except in the picture and our recollections of it.
From New York Times • Oct. 5, 2010
A sort of jeu d'esprit went round to their friends, thanking them for past favours, and asking for a continuance on a smaller scale.
From Story of My Life, volumes 1-3 by Hare, Augustus J. C.