Al-jidd wa-l-hazl , "seriousness and jesting," is an antonymous pair often used to refer to a judicious combination or mixture of these two modes in Arabic literature (especially adab ) and sometimes in people's character and behaviour. Instead of hazl one also finds near-synonyms such as muzāḥ ("joking"), laʿib ("play"), or bāṭil ("nonsense"). In several of his works, notably al-Ḥayawān ("Living beings") and al-Tarbīʿ wa-l-tadwīr ("Squaring and circling"), the famed belletrist al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868) mentions the need for alternating jidd and