Jovial means cheerful and full of good humour. Loud laughter, and everybody made welcome.
It suits hosts, uncles and landlords, and it usually implies a large personality rather than quiet contentment. A jovial mood, a jovial greeting, a jovial man behind the bar. The word comes from Jove, another name for Jupiter, because astrology held that people born under that planet were merry. English kept several of these planet words, and mercurial and saturnine come from the same system.
1adjectivejovialCheerful and friendly in a hearty way.
“He was in a jovial mood all evening.”
Jove is Jupiter, and anyone born under that planet was held to be warm and full of good humour. Jovial keeps the planet's name and the mood with it.
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Proto-Indo-European
*dyew-
Latin
Ioviālis — relating to the Roman god Jupiter
Italian
gioviale — (now obsolete) born under the influence of the planet Jupiter
Middle French
jovial — under the influence of Jupiter; of Jove; jovial, jolly
English, today
jovial
1590; Middle French jovial (“under the influence of Jupiter; of Jove; jovial, jolly”), from Italian gioviale (“(now obsolete) born under the influence of the planet Jupiter”) (attested in Dante, Paradiso, canto XVIII, early 14th century), from Latin Ioviālis (“relating to the Roman god Jupiter”), from {{m|la|Iuppiter|Iuppiter, Iovis|t=the Roman god Jove or Jupiter, counterpart of the Greek god
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA