Link Centre Dictionary

humour

hu·mour

UK/ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/ US/ˈhjuːmɚ/ fairly common uk
noun (6) verb (1)

noun

1.

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”
Synonyms
2.
3.

(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”
Synonyms
4.
5.

the quality of being funny

  • “I fail to see the humor in it”
Synonyms
6.

the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous

  • “she didn”
  • “;”
  • “t survive in the army without a sense of humor”
Synonyms

verb

1.

put into a good mood

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English humour, from Old French humor, humour, from Latin hūmor, correctly ūmor (“liquid”), from hūmeō, correctly ūmeō (“to be moist”). The h in these words, which was silent in late Classical Latin, is folk etymological, due to the erroneous association with the word humus (“soil”). The shift in meaning "liquid" > "mood" is attributed to the classical system of physiology, where human behaviour is regulated by four bodily humours (fluids). The sense "mood" gave rise to the verb sense "to give in to someone's mood or whim" and, by narrowing of meaning, the sense "wit".

Phrases

  • aqueous humour Expressions
  • bad humour Expressions
  • black humour Expressions
  • crystalline humour Expressions
  • dark humour Expressions
  • dry humour Expressions
  • gallows humour Expressions
  • glacial humour Expressions

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.