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# joke

«joke» in Mova's school dictionary: **Something you say or do to make people laugh, often a…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (joke, jokes); verb (joke, jokes, joked, joking)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Something you say or do to make people laugh, often a short funny story. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#m1)

2) Something that is silly or not taken seriously: "The test was a joke." [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#m2)

3) As a verb, to say things to be funny, not seriously: "I'm only joking." [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In everyday life, jokes are fun when everyone laughs; a joke that hurts someone is not kind. In language, many jokes play on words (puns). Phrases: tell a joke, play a joke on, only joking, take a joke, inside joke, no joke (serious).

### examples

- Tell me a joke! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x1)
- That joke was so funny. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x2)
- I was only joking. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x3)
- They played a joke on their teacher. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x4)
- A good joke makes everyone laugh, not just one person. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x5)
- He can't take a joke. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x6)
- Getting lost in the snow is no joke. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x7)
- Why did the chicken cross the road? It's an old joke. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/#x8)

### note

"Joking" drops the e. A joke that makes someone feel bad is teasing, not a joke. "No joke" means something serious.

### In the corpora

- [Exaggeration that everyone knows is a joke, like lights «seen from space», is harmless fun.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/42-our-street-feuds-newcomers-and-stories-that-grow/12/)
- [Serious accusations belong to courts and investigations, not to jokes in the playground.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/44-the-royal-family-in-the-news-a-wedding-a-move-to-america-an-interview-and-a-book/25/)
- ["Allegedly" means someone has claimed it but it is not proved; a parody account is a joke copying a real name.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/50-rumours-about-classmates-and-secrets/20/)
- [Computers are fast at sums and storing facts but weak at common sense, such as knowing when a joke hurts someone.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/3-sounding-right-and-being-right/15/)
- [Bots tend to repeat the most common jokes, because those appeared most often in their training text.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/4-stories-jokes-and-riddles/6/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «joke» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/J/joke/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.