a. [ad. Fr. facétieux (cited from 16th c.), f. facétie, ad. L. facētia (see FACETIÆ) + -OUS.]
† 1. [After L. facetus.] Of style, manners, etc.: Polished and agreeable, urbane. Obs.
1592. H. Chettle in Shaks. C. Praise, 3. Divers of worship have reported, his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting, that aprooves his Art.
2. Characterized by, or addicted to, pleasantry; jocose, jocular, waggish. Formerly often with laudatory sense: Witty, humorous, amusing; also, gay, sprightly. a. of utterances, compositions, actions, etc.
1605. Camden, Rem., 203. It was then thought facetious, which I doubt not but some will now condemn as superstitious.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., xiv. Wks. 1741, I. 147. Facetious speech there serves onely to obstruct and entangle business, to lose time, and protract the result.
1722. Sewel, Hist. Quakers (1795) I. Preface, p. xi. I would not glut my reader with many things of one and the same nature; but have endeavoured by variety of matter, to quicken his appetite; and therefore have intermixed the serious part sometimes with a facetious accident.
1850. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., iv. 19. With that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 346. Strange stories were told of the polite and facetious messages which passed between the besieged and the besiegers.
b. of persons, their qualities, etc.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., I. iii. My sweet facetious rascall.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Religio Medici, 179. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company.
1710. Hearne, Collect. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. 333. He was of a pleasant, facetious Temper.
1758. Johnson, The Idler, No. 33, 2 Dec., ¶ 2. I here send you the Journal of a Senior Fellow, or Genuine Idler, just transmitted from Cambridge by a facetious Correspondent.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxiv. (C. D. ed.), 125. ‘Oh you terrible old man!’ cried the facetious Merry to herself.
1874. Micklethwaite, Modern Parish Churches, 283. The mediæval carvers were many of them facetious fellows, and, as they felt perfectly at home in church, thought it no harm to let off their jokes there, as well as anywhere else.
