lack-laughter
adjEtymology From lack + laughter.
1
Obsolete Cheerless; sombre; serious.
- The lack-laughter sangfroid of the parſon was the conſtant topic of his ridicule, and he complained that whenever I appeared I caſt a gloom over the mirth of his company.1771, John Horne, The Controversial Letters of John Wilkes, Esq., the Rev. John Horne, and Their Principal Adherents, page 153:
- […] many force / Lack-laughter faces to relax / Into the soft lines traced by joy.1850, “Agamemnon”, in Blackie, John Stuart, transl., The Lyrical Dramas of Æschylus, volume 1, translation of original by Aeschylus, page 48: