high jinks

high jinksnoun/ˈhaɪ d͡ʒɪŋks/

• 1

  historicalgamesAn old Scottish parlour game in which people were chosen, usually by throwing dice, to perform some humorous act or drink a large amount of an alcoholic beverage, with a forfeit if they were unable to do so.

  • [T]he frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High Jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain, for a time, a certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning.
• 2

  Boisterous activity or behaviour; lively fun.

  • Only one tutor has rooms here; and I should think, if he's a reading man, it wont be for long before he clears out; for all sorts of high jinks go on on the grass-plot, and the row on the staircases is often as bad, and not half so respectable, as it used to be in the middle passage in the last week of the half year.
  • But given the funny hats and juvenile hijinx, it's hard to buy the play's more serious intentions.
• 3

  Tricky or waggish behaviour; mischief.

  • High Jinks! High Jinks! High Jinks! The haggis has puttin' out the fire, and sealed up the boiler—
  • That's what happened to me the last time you fired a high snowball. Peaches. That's why I didn't want you to try another while I'm around. You wait until I'm off the campus if you've got to indulge in high jinks.