Like toys, these whirligigs have a playful quality, eliciting smiles and even a few chuckles.

Deborah Grant's paintings have the playful, cartoonish quality of Pop art.

"I wanted to make this virtually unusable space an efficient machine to do our business in, but also retain a playful, theatrical quality."

The goat cheese salad has the same playful quality.

In some cases, playful and decorative qualities are mitigated by flatfooted didacticism.

The brief animated sequence at least has a welcome playful quality, though it descends into adolescent vulgarity.

There's a playful quality, a sweetness about him.

He does not approve of the playful qualities in Salinas's poetry and his seeming refusal to deal with profound subjects.

Although it seems rigid, the exercise has an impromptu, playful quality, unlike the regimented day that follows.

The history of the raspberry has the vivid, verbally playful quality of much slang.