agelast

American  

[aj-uh-last] / ˈædʒ əˌlæst /

noun

Literary.

1. a person who never laughs; a humorless person (often used attributively).

   His sharpest critical barbs were reserved for the arid abstractions of the agelasts, the humorless and pedantic scholars.

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Other Word Forms

• agelastic
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of agelast

First recorded in 1875–80; from Middle French agelasate, from agélastos “not laughing,” from a- a- ⁶ ( def. ) + gelastós “laughable” (from geláein, gelân “to laugh”)

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