JOKE


Meaning of JOKE in English

I.

noun

ADJECTIVE

▪ amusing , funny , good , hilarious

She didn't seem to find my ~s amusing.

▪ old

That's an old joke—I've heard it lots of times.

▪ bad , corny , dumb ( AmE ), lame , silly , stupid , unfunny ( esp. BrE )

▪ cruel , sick

▪ racist , sexist

▪ crude , dirty , off-colour/off-color ( esp. AmE )

▪ inside ( esp. AmE ), private

They kept telling inside ~s about people I didn't know.

▪ running

The show features a running ~ about a nosy dog.

▪ practical

His brothers were always playing practical ~s.

▪ huge

It's all just a huge ~ to you, isn't it?

VERB + JOKE

▪ crack , make , tell

He's excellent at telling ~s.

▪ play

He's always playing ~s on people.

▪ exchange , have ( esp. BrE ), share

She likes to share a ~ with her employees.

▪ hear

▪ appreciate , enjoy , get , laugh at , like , understand

We all fell about laughing, but he didn't get the ~.

She doesn't like ~s about her height.

▪ remember

▪ spoil

He told us the ending, completely spoiling the ~.

▪ miss

Am I missing the ~ here?

▪ take

The trouble is she can't take a ~.

▪ treat sth as

He treated his exams as a huge ~.

JOKE + VERB

▪ fall flat

The audience wasn't very responsive and the ~s fell flat.

▪ be on sb

I thought I'd play a trick on them, but in the end the ~ was on me.

PREPOSITION

▪ as a ~

It was only said as a ~.

▪ ~ about

Have you heard the ~ about the elephant and the mouse?

PHRASES

▪ make a ~ of sth

We tried to make a ~ of our situation, but it wasn't really funny.

II.

verb

ADVERB

▪ half

She was only half joking about being president one day.

▪ around

Everyone just ~d around and enjoyed themselves.

▪ lamely , weakly

▪ good-naturedly , playfully

PREPOSITION

▪ about

We ~d about the amount of equipment we had to carry.

▪ with

She's always joking with her friends.

PHRASES

▪ be only joking

Don't worry, I'm only joking!

▪ joking apart ( BrE ), joking aside (= used to show you are now being serious after you have said sth funny)

▪ laugh and ~

They laughed and ~d as they walked along.

▪ you must be joking , you've got to be joking ( esp. AmE )

No way am I doing that. You must be joking!

Oxford Collocations English Dictionary.      Оксфордский английский словарь словосочетаний .