An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/drollig

by Friedrich Kluge

drollig, adjective, ‘droll, ludicrous, queer,’ simply Modern High German from Low German drullig, Dutch drollig; English droll (substantive and adjective), also adjective drollish; French drôle, ‘droll, merry.’ None of these are recorded in the older periods of the several languages, hence their origin (Romance? Teutonic?). is obscure. The derivation from the Scandinavian name trǫll applied to ghostly monsters is improbable, for in the Scandinavian dialects the word has an initial t while the. Modern High German drollig and its cognates have d.