laughter
nounUK /ˈlɑːftə/ · US /ˈlæftɚ/
Etymology From Middle English laughter, laghter, laȝter, from Old English hleahtor (“laughter, jubilation, derision”), from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz (“laughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *klek-, *kleg- (“to shout”). Cognate with German Gelächter (“laughter, hilarity, merriment”), Danish and Norwegian latter (“laughter”), Icelandic hlátur (“laughter”). More at laugh.
Usually The sound of laughing, produced by air so expelled; any similar sound.
- Their loud laughter betrayed their presence.
- There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town.1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock:
Usually A movement (usually involuntary) of the muscles of the laughing face, particularly of the lips, and of the whole body, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs.
- The act of laughter, which is caused by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves.1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC:
- Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter.1858 October 16, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Courtship of Miles Standish”, in The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:
Archaic, Usually A reason for merriment.
- Derived terms
- canned laughter, clapter, dying laughter, dying of laughter, evil laughter, Homeric laughter, horselaughter, lack-laughter, laughterful, laughter is the best medicine, laughterless, laughter lines, laughter padding, laughtersome, laughter track, laughter yoga, prelaughter, underlaughter