Jesting

Jesting - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

JEST'ING, ppr. Joking; talking for diversion or merriment.

JEST'ING, n. A joking; concise wit; wit that consists in a trope or verbal figure, in a metaphorical sense of words, or in a double sense of the same word, or in similitude of sound in different words.

jest'-ing: Used from Tyndale down as the translation of eutrapelia (Eph 5:4). Aristotle uses the original in his Ethics iv.14 as an equivalent of "quick-witted," from its root meaning "something easily turned," adding that, since the majority of people love excessive jesting, the word is apt to be degraded. This is the case here, where it clearly has a flavor of the coarse or licentious.