mirthsome
adjEtymology From mirth + -some.
1
Full of mirth.
- The violets blow, and mirthsome birds / With wild song fill the air1823 March, Nalla, “Riley Grave-Stones”, in The London Magazine, London: Taylor & Hessey, Eyam Banks, page 284:
- Every Russian noble, […] may appear as gay as a released bird, because the Muscovite improvidence of character allows him to feel mirthsome with the prospect of immediate enjoyment before him, and the certainty of the evil day of reckoning being a year or two removed; but when he is returning, there flashes across his mind the dread of all that may have been reported upon his conversation and conduct.1845, Charles Frederick Henningsen, “The Secret Police”, in Revelations of Russia, volume 1, London: Henry Colburn, page 205:
2 more examples
- The "Worship of Venus," in the bright and varied scale of its tones, and the brilliant play of its lights, is a conception of a gleeful and mirthsome stamp.1877, Joseph Archer Crowe, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, chapter 6, in Titian: His Life and Times, volume 1, London: John Murray, page 210:
- They bid me laugh, and with mirthsome wiles / And the laughing jests of the free and gay, / They seek to call to my face the smiles / That mock the joy that is far away.1889 May 17, Burdette, The Harvard Lampoon, volume 17, number 7, Cambridge, page 110:
- Derived terms
- mirthsomeness