humor
Idioms about humor
Origin of humor
synonym study for humor
OTHER WORDS FROM humor
Words nearby humor
MORE ABOUT HUMOR
What is a basic definition of humor?
Humor is the ability of something to cause amusement or laughter. Humor is also a person’s ability to find amusement or comedy in something. As a verb, humor means to comply with someone’s demands or opinions in order to soothe them. Humor has several other senses as a noun or a verb.
Humor refers to something’s or someone’s ability to make people laugh or be amused. Usually, this is done by involving things that are funny or absurd. For example, a cartoon’s humor may involve slapstick comedy or characters doing ridiculous things as part of a wacky scheme. The word humor may also refer to a specific attempt at being funny. If something successfully uses humor, it is considered to be humorous.
- Real-life examples: Cartoons, jokes, pranks, standup comedy, and funny movies are all examples of things that attempt to use humor to entertain people.
- Used in a sentence: We laughed when my dad accidentally opened the gift meant for the dog, but he failed to see the humor in the situation.
Humor also refers to a person’s ability or willingness to find amusement or comedy in things. Often, this sense is used in the phrase sense of humor.
- Real-life examples: A person who is full of humor laughs at almost anything and is easily amused. A person with no sense of humor seems to rarely laugh or smile. Someone who finds offensive or shameful things funny is said to have a bad or poor sense of humor.
- Used in a sentence: My friend has no sense of humor and never laughs at any of my funny jokes.
When you humor someone, you agree with what they are saying or go along with their demands so that they don’t get angry or become a problem. Usually, you don’t actually agree with the person you are humoring. You do it to make them go away or be less of a problem.
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Used in a sentence: I know you think my ideas are really stupid, but just humor me for a second.
Where does humor come from?
The first records of humor come from the early 1300s. It ultimately comes from the Latin hūmor, meaning “moisture” or “body fluid.”
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What are some other forms related to humor?
- humorous (adjective)
- humorful (adjective)
- humorless (adjective)
- outhumor (verb)
- prehumor (noun, verb)
- unhumored (adjective)
- well-humored (adjective)
What are some synonyms for humor?
What are some words that share a root or word element with humor?
What are some words that often get used in discussing humor?
How is humor used in real life?
Humor is a common word that refers to things that are funny or that make people laugh.
Door-2-door salesman tried to interest me in a home security system, but I could hardly hear him over the barking of my dog.
He didn’t seem to see the humor in the situation.
— Selkiesulking (@Selkiesulking1) December 27, 2020
Paul Chryst has such a great, dry sense of humor. When asked about the trophy breaking he played it off at first ("Am I under oath?") then slipped in the line "We just wanted everyone to have a piece."
— Dave Heller (@dave_heller) December 30, 2020
Still digging the VW commercial with Tracy Morgan and Stevie Wonder – funny without trying. That's my kind of humor.
— Caitlin Morrall (@CaitlinMorrall) February 8, 2010
Try using humor!
Which of the following words would most likely be used to describe humor?
A. funny
B. sad
C. boring
D. scary
How to use humor in a sentence
Scientific definitions for humor
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), and they differed from each other in being either warm or cold and moist or dry. Each humor was also associated with one of the four elements, the basic substances that made up the universe in ancient schemes of thought. Blood was the warm, moist humor associated with the element fire, and phlegm was the cold, moist humor associated with water. Black bile was the cold, dry humor associated with the earth, and yellow bile was the warm, dry humor associated with the air. Illnesses were thought to be caused by an imbalance in the humors within the body, as were defects in personality, and some medical terminology in English still reflects these outmoded concepts. For example, too much black bile was thought to make a person gloomy, and nowadays symptoms of depression such as insomnia and lack of pleasure in enjoyable activities are described as melancholic symptoms, ultimately from the Greek word melancholia, excess of black bile, formed from melan-, black, and khole, bile. The old term for the cold, clammy humor, phlegm, lives on today as the word for abnormally large accumulations of mucus in the upper respiratory tract. Another early name of yellow bile in English, choler, is related to the name of the disease cholera, which in earlier times denoted stomach disorders thought to be due to an imbalance of yellow bile. Both words are ultimately from the Greek word chole, bile.
Cultural definitions for humor
notes for humor
Other Idioms and Phrases with humor
see out of sorts (humor).