Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness.
  • noun That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement.
  • noun The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd.
  • noun One of the four fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, choler, and black bile, whose relative proportions were thought in ancient and medieval physiology to determine a person's disposition and general health.
  • noun A body fluid, such as blood, lymph, or bile.
  • noun Aqueous humor.
  • noun Vitreous humor.
  • noun A person's characteristic disposition or temperament.
  • noun An often temporary state of mind; a mood.
  • noun A sudden, unanticipated inclination; a whim.
  • noun Capricious or peculiar behavior.
  • transitive verb To comply with the wishes or ideas of (another) in order to keep that person satisfied or unaware of criticism; indulge.
  • transitive verb To adapt or accommodate oneself to: synonym: pamper.
  • idiom (out of humor) In a bad mood; irritable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To give a slight direction or turn to (a fly, in fishing, or the like).
  • noun Moisture; an exhalation.
  • noun An animal fluid, whether natural or morbid; now, especially, any of the thinner bodily fluids, limpid, serous, or sanious, as the constituent fluids or semi-fluids of the eye, or the watery matter in some cutaneous eruptions.
  • noun Hence One's special condition of mind or quality of feeling; peculiarity of disposition, permanent or temporary; mental state; mood: as, a surly humor; a strange humor.
  • noun Specifically— Disposition, especially a capricious disposition; freak; whim; vagary; oddness of mood or manners: in this sense very fashionable in the time of Shakspere.
  • noun A facetious or jocular turn of mind, as in conversation; the disposition to find, or the faculty of finding, ludicrous aspects or suggestions in common facts or notions.
  • noun In lit., witty, droll, or jocose imagination, conspicuous in thought and expression, and tending to excite amusement; that quality in composition which is characterized by the predominance of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous in the choice or treatment of a theme: distinguished from wit, which implies superior subtlety and finer thought. Humor in literature may be further distinguished by its humane and sympathetic quality, by force of which it is often found blending the pathetic with the ludicrous, and by the same stroke moving to tears and laughter, in this respect improving upon the pure and often cold intellectuality which is the essence of wit.
  • noun See the adjectives.
  • noun Fancy, whimsey, crotchet, fad.
  • noun and
  • noun Wit, Humor (see wit); pleasantry, jocoseness, facetiousness, jocularity.
  • To comply with the humor, fancy, or disposition of; soothe by compliance; indulge; gratify.
  • To endeavor to comply with the peculiarities or exigencies of; adapt one's self to; suit or accommodate: as, to humor one's part or the piece.
  • Synonyms Indulge, etc. See gratify.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.
  • noun (Med.) A vitiated or morbid animal fluid, such as often causes an eruption on the skin.
  • noun State of mind, whether habitual or temporary (as formerly supposed to depend on the character or combination of the fluids of the body); disposition; temper; mood
  • noun Changing and uncertain states of mind; caprices; freaks; vagaries; whims.
  • noun That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations; a playful fancy; facetiousness.
  • noun (Anat.) See Eye.
  • noun dissatisfied; displeased; in an unpleasant frame of mind.
  • transitive verb To comply with the humor of; to adjust matters so as suit the peculiarities, caprices, or exigencies of; to adapt one's self to; to indulge by skillful adaptation.
  • transitive verb To help on by indulgence or compliant treatment; to soothe; to gratify; to please.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable A mood, especially a bad mood; a temporary state of mind brought upon by an event; an abrupt illogical inclination or whim.
  • noun medicine Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour.
  • noun A fluid or semi-fluid of the body.
  • verb transitive : To pacify by indulging.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter
  • noun the quality of being funny
  • noun the liquid parts of the body
  • noun the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, fluid, from Old French umor, from Latin ūmor, hūmor.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French humor, from Latin humor, correctly umor ("moisture"), from humere, correctly umere ("to be moist").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word humor.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.