humor
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hu·mor
(hyo͞o′mər)n.
1. The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2. That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3. The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd: "Man's sense of humor seems to be in inverse proportion to the gravity of his profession" (Mary Roberts Rinehart).
4. One of the four fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, choler, and black bile, whose relative proportions were thought in ancient and medieval physiology to determine a person's disposition and general health.
5. Physiology
a. A body fluid, such as blood, lymph, or bile.
b. Aqueous humor.
c. Vitreous humor.
6. A person's characteristic disposition or temperament: a boy of sullen humor.
7. An often temporary state of mind; a mood: I'm in no humor to argue.
8.
a. A sudden, unanticipated inclination; a whim.
b. Capricious or peculiar behavior.
tr.v. hu·mored, hu·mor·ing, hu·mors
Idiom: 1. To comply with the wishes or ideas of (another) in order to keep that person satisfied or unaware of criticism; indulge: "When she was convinced a man was giving her the eye, we humored her and agreed" (Jhumpa Lahiri).
2. To adapt or accommodate oneself to: humored his uncle's peculiarities. See Synonyms at pamper.
out of humor
In a bad mood; irritable.
[Middle English, fluid, from Old French umor, from Latin ūmor, hūmor.]
Word History: Physicians in ancient and medieval times thought that the human body contained a mixture of four fluids and that a person's health and temperament depended upon the relative proportions of these fluids within the body. In Middle English, these fluids were called humours, ultimately from the Latin word hūmor, "fluid." (Latin hūmor, also found in the variant form ūmor, contains the same root found in the Latin adjective hūmidus, "moist," whence English humid.) Each of the four humors, namely blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, or sanguis, phlegma, melancholia, and choler in Latin, were defined as warm or cold and moist or dry and associated with one of the four elements, and a superfluity of any one humor was thought to produce a characteristic disposition. Blood, the warm, moist humor associated with the element fire, caused a ruddy complexion and a sanguine disposition, marked by courage, hope, and a readiness to fall in love. Phlegm, the cold, moist humor associated with water, made one phlegmatic, or calm, sluggish, and unemotional. Black bile, the cold, dry humor associated with earth, caused depression, or melancholy. Yellow bile, the warm, dry humor associated with the air, made one choleric, or easily angered. By the late 1500s, the word humour had become synonymous with temperament and was used especially to refer to one's temperament when dominated by one of the four humors. As an extension of this sense, humour came to indicate changing moods or states of mind, particularly whimsical and capricious fancies that, when revealed in action, provide amusement to others. In the 1600s, humour (now spelled humor in the United States) at last came to mean the quality that makes something amusing or laughable, as well as the ability to amuse others and to appreciate those things that are amusing—that is, a sense of humor.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
hu•mor
(ˈhyu mər; often ˈyu-)n.
1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement.
2. the faculty of perceiving and expressing or appreciating what is amusing or comical: a writer with humor and zest.
3. an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; something humorous.
4. comical writing or talk in general; comical books, skits, plays, etc.
5. mental disposition or temperament.
6. a temporary mood or frame of mind: in a sulky humor today.
7. a capricious or freakish inclination; whim or caprice; odd trait.
8. any animal or plant fluid, esp. one of the body fluids once regarded as determining a person's constitution: blood, phlegm, black bile, or yellow bile.
v.t. 9. to comply with the humor or mood of in order to soothe, cheer up, etc.: to humor a child.
10. to adapt or accommodate oneself to: I'll humor your whim for now.
Idioms: out of humor, dissatisfied; cross.
Also, esp. Brit., humour. [1300–50; Middle English (h)umour < Anglo-French < Latin (h)ūmor moisture, bodily fluid =(h)ūm(ēre) to be wet (compare humid) + -ōr- -or1]
hu′mor•less, adj.
hu′mor•less•ly, adv.
hu′mor•less•ness, n.
syn: humor, wit refer to an ability to perceive and express a sense of the clever or amusing. humor consists principally in the recognition and expression of incongruities or peculiarities present in a situation or character. It is frequently used to illustrate some fundamental absurdity in human nature or conduct, and is generally thought of as a kindly trait: a genial and mellow type of humor. wit is a purely intellectual, often spontaneous, manifestation of cleverness and quickness in discovering analogies between things really unlike, and expressing them in brief, diverting, and often sharp observations: biting wit.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
hu·mor
(hyo͞o′mər) One of the four fluids of the body—blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile—whose relative proportions were thought in ancient and medieval medicine to determine general health and character.
Word History Doctors in ancient times and in the Middle Ages thought the human body contained a mixture of four substances, called humors, that determined a person's health and character. The humors were fluids (humor means "fluid" in Latin), namely blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Illnesses were thought to be caused by an imbalance in the humors, as were defects in personality. Too much black bile, for example, was thought to make one gloomy, and too much yellow bile was thought to make one short-tempered. Modern English has words referring to these moods that come from the Greek words for the relevant humors. We call a gloomy person melancholic, from the Greek term for "black bile," and we call a short-tempered person choleric, from the Greek word for "yellow bile." Our word humorous, in fact, originally meant "having changeable moods due to the influence of different humors."
The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Humor
a concise witticism or well-turned phrase. — Atticist, n.
1. a tendency to amuse others by tricks, jokes, unusual gestures, and strange gestures.
2. a tendency toward coarse joking. Also buffoonery. — buffoon, n. — buffoonish, adj.
2. a tendency toward coarse joking. Also buffoonery. — buffoon, n. — buffoonish, adj.
1. amusing or witty writings and remarks.
2. coarsely witty stories or books. — facetious, adj.
2. coarsely witty stories or books. — facetious, adj.
1. the habit of joking or jesting.
2. a joke or a jest.
3. the state or quality of humorousness or playfulness. — jocose, adj.
2. a joke or a jest.
3. the state or quality of humorousness or playfulness. — jocose, adj.
the condition or quality of being biting or caustic, as humor, speech, etc. See also speech. — mordant, adj.
trifles or trivia, especially light verses or sayings.
the habit of dealing with serious matters in a spirit of good and sometimes cynical good humor. [Allusion to Rabelais’ satirical novels Gargantua (1534) and Pantagruel (1532), especially to the behavior of Pantagruel, Gargantua’s huge son.] — Pantagruelian, adj.
a humorous performance at the piano, sometimes with a verbal accompaniment by the performer.
1. a person who imitates or is an enthusiast for the works of Francois Rabelais.
2. a person given to coarse, satirical humor, like that of Rabelais. — Rabelaisian, adj.
2. a person given to coarse, satirical humor, like that of Rabelais. — Rabelaisian, adj.
the personality or character of Rabelais, as in the use of coarse, satirical humor. Also Rabelaisianism.
a person skilled in the exchange of witticisms.
coarse, vulgar, or obscene language or joking. — ribald, adj.
1. a writer of satire.
2. a person who uses satire or makes satirical comments.
2. a person who uses satire or makes satirical comments.
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Humor
See Also: CLEVERNESS, LAUGHTER
- Funny as a crutch —American colloquialism
This typifies the ironic simile that says one thing while it means quite the opposite. A variation that takes the irony an extra step: “Funny as a rubber crutch.”
- Funny as a dirty joke at a funeral —William Mcllvanney
- Funny as your own funeral —Anon
- Good jests bite like lambs, not like dogs —Thomas Fuller
- Humor … like good cheese, mellowed and ripened by age —Dorothy Canfield Fisher
- Humor, like history … repeats itself like a Gila monster —Harold Adams
- Jokes that weren’t proper and which therefore went through me like an electric shock, both pleasant and intolerable —Thomas Keneally
- Like clothes for the needy, they [jokes] were worn, shabby and used —Henry Van Dyke
- Sarcasm should not be like a saw, but a sword; it should cut, and not mangle —Lord Francis Jeffrey
- A sarcastic wit is a kind of human pole-cat —Josh Billings
In Billings’ phonetic dialect this reads: “a sarkastic wit iz a kind ov human pole-cat.”
- They [poorly told jokes] just lie where they fall, plop, like dropped jellyfish —Herman Wouk
- True sacrcasm is like a swordstick; it appears, at first sight, to be much more innocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, there leaps something out of it, sharp and deadly and incisive, which makes you tremble and recoil —Sydney Smith
- Wheezing out great lumps of irony like a cat spitting up fur —Wilfrid Sheed
Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
humor
Past participle: humored
Gerund: humoring
| Imperative |
|---|
| humor |
| humor |
Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
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| Noun | 1. |  humor - a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughterjeu d'esprit - a witty comment or writing esprit de l'escalier - a witty remark that occurs to you too late pungency, bite - wit having a sharp and caustic quality; "he commented with typical pungency"; "the bite of satire" caustic remark, irony, sarcasm, satire - witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the stupid"; "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own"--Jonathan Swift repartee - adroitness and cleverness in reply gag, jape, jest, joke, laugh - a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter; "he told a very funny joke"; "he knows a million gags"; "thanks for the laugh"; "he laughed unpleasantly at his own jest"; "even a schoolboy's jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point" caricature, impersonation, imitation - a representation of a person that is exaggerated for comic effect fun, sport, play - verbal wit or mockery (often at another's expense but not to be taken seriously); "he became a figure of fun"; "he said it in sport" ribaldry - ribald humor topper - an exceedingly good witticism that surpasses all that have gone before libation - (facetious) a serving of an alcoholic beverage roaster - a harsh or humorous critic (sometimes intended as a facetious compliment); "the honoree gave his roasters as good as he got" |
| 2. | humor - the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous; "she didn't appreciate my humor"; "you can't survive in the army without a sense of humor" playfulness, fun - a disposition to find (or make) causes for amusement; "her playfulness surprised me"; "he was fun to be with" | |
| 3. |  humor - a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of feeling; "whether he praised or cursed me depended on his temper at the time"; "he was in a bad humor"feeling - the experiencing of affective and emotional states; "she had a feeling of euphoria"; "he had terrible feelings of guilt"; "I disliked him and the feeling was mutual" peeve - an annoyed or irritated mood | |
| 4. | humor - the quality of being funny; "I fail to see the humor in it" quality - an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone; "the quality of mercy is not strained"--Shakespeare comicality - the quality of being comical | |
| 5. | humor - (Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical state; "the humors are blood and phlegm and yellow and black bile" body substance - the substance of the body physiology - the branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms antiquity - the historic period preceding the Middle Ages in Europe Dark Ages, Middle Ages - the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance | |
| 6. | humor - the liquid parts of the body body substance - the substance of the body aqueous humor, aqueous humour - the limpid fluid within the eyeball between the cornea and the lens vitreous body, vitreous humor, vitreous humour - the clear colorless transparent jelly that fills the posterior chamber of the eyeball endolymph - the bodily fluid that fills the membranous labyrinth of the inner ear perilymph - the bodily fluid that fills the space between the bony labyrinth and the membranous labyrinth of the inner ear ECF, extracellular fluid - liquid containing proteins and electrolytes including the liquid in blood plasma and interstitial fluid; "the body normally has about 15 quarts of extracellular fluid" intracellular fluid - liquid contained inside the cell membranes (usually containing dissolved solutes) karyolymph - a clear liquid in the cell nucleus in which the nucleolus and chromatin and other structures are dispersed milk - produced by mammary glands of female mammals for feeding their young amnionic fluid, amniotic fluid, waters - the serous fluid in which the embryo is suspended inside the amnion; "before a woman gives birth her waters break" blood - the fluid (red in vertebrates) that is pumped through the body by the heart and contains plasma, blood cells, and platelets; "blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and carries away waste products"; "the ancients believed that blood was the seat of the emotions" blood serum, serum - an amber, watery fluid, rich in proteins, that separates out when blood coagulates chyle - a milky fluid consisting of lymph and emulsified fats; formed in the small intestine during digestion of ingested fats lymph - a thin coagulable fluid (similar to plasma but) containing white blood cells (lymphocytes) and chyle; is conveyed to the blood stream by lymphatic vessels come, seminal fluid, seed - the thick white fluid containing spermatozoa that is ejaculated by the male genital tract ink - dark protective fluid ejected into the water by cuttlefish and other cephalopods secretion - a functionally specialized substance (especially one that is not a waste) released from a gland or cell black bile, melancholy - a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy yellow bile, choler - a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the liver and to cause irritability and anger lochia - substance discharged from the vagina (cellular debris and mucus and blood) that gradually decreases in amount during the weeks following childbirth cerebrospinal fluid, spinal fluid - clear liquid produced in the ventricles of the brain; fills and protects cavities in the brain and spinal cord | |
| Verb | 1. | humor - put into a good mood |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
humor
noun1. The quality of being laughable or comical:
2. A person's customary manner of emotional response:
3. A temporary state of mind or feeling:
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
humor
humor
huumori
humor
ユーモア
유머
humor
humor
อารมณ์ขัน
sự hài hước
humour
(American) humor (ˈhjuːmə) noun1. the ability to amuse people; quickness to spot a joke. He has a great sense of humour.
2. the quality of being amusing. the humour of the situation.
verb to please (someone) by agreeing with him or doing as he wishes. There is no point in telling him he is wrong – just humour him instead.
ˈhumorist noun a person who writes or tells amusing stories, jokes etc.
ˈhumorous adjective funny; amusing. a humorous situation/remark.
ˈhumorously adverbˈhumorousness noun
-humoured
having, or showing, feelings or a personality of a particular sort. a good-humoured person; an ill-humoured remark.
humour, noun, ends in -our.
humorous, adjective, drops the u.
humorous, adjective, drops the u.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
humor
→ دُعَابَةٌ humor humor Humor χιούμορ humor huumori humour humor umorismo ユーモア 유머 humor humor humor humor юмор humor อารมณ์ขัน mizah sự hài hước 幽默Multilingual Translator © HarperCollins Publishers 2009
humor
n humor m; You don’t want to lose your sense of humor..No deberías perder tu sentido del humor; aqueous — humor acuoso; vitreous — humor vítreoEnglish-Spanish/Spanish-English Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.