jucundity

English

Etymology

From Latin jucunditas, from jucundus. See jocundity.

Noun

jucundity (countable and uncountable, plural jucundities)

1. (obsolete) Pleasantness or happiness
   • 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:

     For the act of laughter, which is evidenced by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely voluntary, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves, but, as it may be constrained by corporal contaction in any, and hath been enforced in some even in their death, so the new, unusual, or unexpected, jucundities which present themselves to any man in his life, at some time or other, will have activity enough to excitate the earthiest soul, and raise a smile from the most composed tempers.

References

• OED
• “jucundity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.