no joke

no joke idiom
Also, no laughing matter. A serious issue, as in Missing the last flight out was no joke, or This outbreak of flu is no laughing matter. The first term dates from about 1800, and the variant from the second half of the 1500s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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