joke

/ˈjōk/

Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks

noun

  1. something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist

  2. the humorous or ridiculous element in something

  3. an instance of jesting : kidding

verb

  1. to make jokes : jest

  2. to make the object of a joke : kid

noun

  1. a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny

He's seen the annual event grow from an Austin oddity to a national event and watched dad jokes, of which puns are the most obvious example, take hold in the millennial consciousness; a dad-joke-devoted Reddit board boasts more than 250,000 members.