joking

3 definitions • 5 examples

present participle of

to say funny things:

They joked and laughed as they looked at the photos.

It's more serious than you think, so please don't joke about it.

[ + speech ] "I didn't expect to be out so soon", he joked, after spending nine months in hospital.

If you think that someone is joking, you think that they do not really mean what they say:

I thought he was joking when he said Helen was pregnant, but she really is.

She wasn't joking (= she was serious) when she said she was going to move out of the house.