jape

jape \JAYP\, noun, verb:

1. A joke or jest.
2. A trick or prank.
3. To joke; to jest.
4. To make fun of; to mock.

One elderly Englishman, complete with tweed suit and cane, japed to a passport control officer: "We're not all hooligans you know."
-- Mike Underwood, "Into the fire", Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), October 13, 2003

He tried to defuse each petty crisis with a merry jape and spend each day with a life-affirming and reasonably up tempo alt. country song in his heart.
-- Chris Priestley, "Payne's grey", New Statesman, November 29, 2004

The shot was more of a jape than an assassination attempt, and was rightly treated as a laugh by the press and by the Prime Minister, who carried on as if nothing had happened.
-- Nick Cohen, "Daddy will stop at nothing to see you", New Statesman, November 15, 2004

Jape comes from Middle English, probably from Old French japer, "to yap, to chatter."