Lexic.us

Definition of Humour

1. Verb. Put into a good mood.

2. Noun. A characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of feeling. "He was in a bad humor"

3. Noun. A message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter.

4. Noun. (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"

5. Noun. The liquid parts of the body.

6. Noun. The quality of being funny. "I fail to see the humor in it"

7. Noun. The trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous. "You can't survive in the army without a sense of humor"

Definition of Humour

1. Noun. (obsolete) Moist vapour, moisture. ¹

2. Noun. (archaic or historical) Any of the fluids in an animal body, especially the four "cardinal humours" of blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm that were believed to control the health and mood of the human body. ¹

3. Noun. Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour. ¹

4. Noun. One's state of mind or disposition; one's mood. ¹

5. Noun. The quality in events, speech or writing which is seen as funny, or creates amusement, such as a joke, satire, parody, etc. ¹

6. Verb. (transitive) To pacify by indulging. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Humour

1. to humor [v -ED, -ING, -S] - See also: humor

Medical Definition of Humour

1. 1. A normal functioning fluid or semifluid of the body (as the blood, lymph or bile) especially of vertebrates. 2. A secretion that is itself an excitant of activity (as certain hormones). (06 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Humour

humorized humorizes humorizing humorless humorlessly humorlessness humorlessnesses humorous humorously humorousness

humorousnesses humors humorsome humorsomely humorsomeness humour'd humoural humoured humouring humourise

humourised humourises humourising humourist humouristic humouristically humourists humourize humourized

Literary usage of Humour

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist: A Popular Illustration of the Principles by Richard Green Moulton (1901)
"Three types of humour in As You Lihe It. Healthy XV. How 'As You LIKE IT' PRESENTS VARIED FORMS OF humour IN CONFLICT WITH A SINGLE CONVENTIONALITY. ..."

2. The Living Age by Making of America Project, Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell (1876)
"And yet, we all swear that we love humour above all things. We enjoy Shakespeare's humour; but he has been dead a long time, and the bravest of men docs not ..."

3. The Spectator by Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1830)
"It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. ..."

4. The Cambridge History of American Literature by William Peterfield Trent (1918)
"CHAPTER XIX Early Humorists ALTHOUGH American literature was, even at the beginning, not without its humour, much of the early writing which ..."

5. The New Fiction: And Other Essays on Literary Subjects by Henry Duff Traill (1897)
"It is humour alone which will not wear: it happens only to the joke to seem exquisite to the men of one age, and imbecile to the men of another; ..."

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