humorous
1 Americanadjective
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funny; comical; amusing
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displaying or creating humour
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archaic another word for capricious
Related Words
Humorous, witty, facetious, waggish imply something that arises from cleverness or a sense of fun. Humorous implies a genuine sense of fun and the comic, impersonal, or gently personal: a humorous version of an incident; a humorous view of life. Witty implies quickness to perceive the amusing, striking, or unusual and to express it cleverly and entertainingly; it sometimes becomes rather sharp and unkind, particularly in quick repartee of a personal nature: a witty and interesting companion; to be witty at someone else's expense. Facetious suggests a desire or attempt to be jocular or witty but not to be taken seriously: a facetious remark. Waggish suggests the spirit of sly mischief and roguery of the constant joker, with no harm intended: a waggish good humor.
Other Word Forms
- humorously adverb
- humorousness noun
Etymology
Origin of humorous1
First recorded in 1570–80; humor + -ous
Origin of humorous2
1375–1425; late Middle English < Late Latin ( h ) ūmōrōsus; humor, -ous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The online blurb says the book is a "darkly humorous novel that uses the deftest touch to draw a thread through the lives of Welsh farmers, city accountants, Indian hoteliers and Eisteddfod mums".
From BBC
Morrison saw the potential for a humorous self-help book.
French social media has been inundated with "humorous" posts about the battle between the late German dictator Adolf Hitler and Ukraine's modern-day hero Volodymyr Zelensky.
From BBC
Emojis, Disney characters, cigarettes and more pile up in humorous scenes that include a saber-toothed tiger driving a dune buggy and a pair of corvids fighting over a worm.
Participants also thought the brand was most confident and humorous when it embraced the negative phrase.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
