levity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.

   Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity […].

2. 2
   noun

   A lighthearted or frivolous act.

   For though it be something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were many ways lessened.

3. 3
   noun

   a manner lacking seriousness

4. 4
   noun

   feeling an inappropriate lack of seriousness

Coined in 1564, from Latin levitās (“lightness, frivolity”), from levis (“lightness (in weight)”). Cognate to lever, and more distantly, light.

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