facetious

Word relationships

• flippant: Flippant implies a disrespectful lack of seriousness, while facetious specifically highlights the attempt to be funny or witty at the wrong time.
• jocular: Jocular simply means playful or humorous without the negative connotation of being inappropriate or flippant.

• solemn: Solemn implies deep sincerity, gravity, and a highly serious state of mind.
• grave: Grave describes a situation or attitude that is extremely serious and demands deep respect.

Commonly confused with

• factious: Factious means causing dissent or division within a group, whereas facetious means inappropriately humorous.

Word family

• facetiously (adverb): In a flippant or inappropriately humorous manner.
• facetiousness (noun): The quality of being facetious.

Collocations

• facetious remark
• facetious comment
• facetious suggestion
• facetious tone

Example sentences

• "Please don't be facetious about our budget deficit; we need real solutions." A warning to a colleague during a serious business meeting.

Memory hook

Think of 'face' and 'tease'. When you are facetious, you make a teasing face at a serious moment. Making a teasing face at a serious time.

When not to use

Do not use facetious to describe a genuinely funny joke in a casual setting; use it only when the humor is inappropriate or flippant given the serious context.

Fun facts

• The word 'facetious' is one of the few English words that contains all five vowels in alphabetical order (a-e-i-o-u).
• In the 16th century, a book of 'facetiae' was a collection of humorous anecdotes and jokes.

Related words

mocking, satirical

Explore more words

self-deprecating, impertinence, disingenuous, inane, Garrulous, glib

Also appears in

• Media, Journalism & Publishing → Satire & Political Cartoons