Definition of "joviality"

The Duke […] willingly interposed the pleasures of wit and facetiousnesse with the grave cares of his government, tempering wisely his troubles with Joviality of words and actions […]

1651, Fulgenzio Micanzio, The Life of the Most Learned Father Paul, Of the Order of the Servie, translator not credited, London: Humphrey Moseley and Richard Marriot, p. 13

I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a gush of joviality.

1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter V, in Great Expectations […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861

This remark sobered the father’s joviality, and brought his mind to business.

1881, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 10, in The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages, Montreal, Que.: Dawson Brothers

By the joviality of their insults Babbitt knew that he had been taken back to their hearts, and happily he rose.

1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 24, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, section IV

Joviality fled from the table, Shekhar studied his cards. Owad frowned at his. His foot was tapping on the concrete floor. More watchers came.

1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part Two, Chapter 6

Success on social media tends to instil in the early career academics and postgraduates who achieve it, after merciless encouragement from outreach and impact gurus in HE management, a kind of unwavering, po-faced self-belief in their own genius and thus the vital urgency of their research, the overall effect being a strange mixture of corporate cynicism and uneasy joviality.

2014 November 6, Benjamin Poore, “Carry on campus: The satirical needling deflates the high-minded ideals of the groves of academy”, in The Independent