Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A snorting, joyful laugh or chuckle.
- intransitive & transitive verb To utter a chortle or express with a chortle.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To exclaim exultingly, with a noisy chuckle: a vaguely suggestive word used in the first passage quoted, and since taken up by other writers in the sense defined.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- verb Humorous A word coined by Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson), and usually explained as a combination of
chuckle andsnort .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
joyful , somewhatmuffled laugh , rather like asnorting chuckle . - verb intransitive To laugh with a chortle or chortles.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a soft partly suppressed laugh
- verb laugh quietly or with restraint
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Although manteau = cloak and portmanteau = carry + cloak, "portmanteau word" was a coinage by Lewis Carroll, to refer to words like "chortle" chuckle + snort and so called because it resembled the Gladstone bag style of portmanteau, which has two equal compartments that fasten together in the middle.
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I love that crazy guy who is sometimes on the bus who has a laugh that actually might fit the word "chortle".
Archive 2008-02-01 2008
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He had to say "chortle" at the end to signify that that was a joke.
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He had to say "chortle" at the end to signify that that was a joke.
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When I indicate a "chortle", I am indeed chortling ... living proof of this has been captured on video, at the link above.
Paper Trufflez 2008
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Dan Colen responds at disjointed length in comments, Dan is seriously hung up on the word "chortle".
RVABlogs 2008
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Dan Colen responds at disjointed length in comments, Dan is seriously hung up on the word "chortle".
RVABlogs 2008
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Dan Colen responds at disjointed length in comments, Dan is seriously hung up on the word "chortle".
RVABlogs 2008
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Kind of hard for a critic to say much beyond a chortle of self-recognition
Paul Klein: Breadth on View, Depth in Mind Paul Klein 2011
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But it seems a bit of a stretch for Prime Minister José Sócrates, a candidate for re-election on June 5, to chortle that the bailout is "a big success."
A Scheme to Make Charles Ponzi Proud Irwin Stelzer 2011
dann commented on the word chortle
A keen example of a portmanteau nonce word now used in common parlance, this Carrollism combines chuckle and snort into a single delightful morpheme.
January 7, 2007
thadguidry commented on the word chortle
You chortle whenever someone gets you laughing and chuckling with pig-like snorting sounds.
July 29, 2010
rkiddy commented on the word chortle
Why does the etymology just say that it is invented by Lewis Carroll? Seems odd to leave that out.
February 9, 2013
alexz commented on the word chortle
1. the definitions are open source, and ofthen archaic.
2. looking up google books, we don't see chortle being used
(I checked 1800 to 1822, and all the hits were OCR mismatches from scanning blurry books)
http://goo.gl/0k2ZQ
"CHORTLE verb popular To chuckle to laugh in one's sleeve to snort Introduced by Lewis Carrol in Through the Looking Glass See
quot 1872 LEWIS CARROL Through Looking Glass i O frabjous day I Calloon Callay He CHORTLED in his joy
1876 BESANT AMD RICK Golden Butterfly xxxii 242 It makes the cynic and the worldly minded man to chuckle and CHORTLE with an open joy
1887 Athemrttm 3 Dec p 751 col i A means of exciting cynical CHORTLING 1888 Daily Nevis 10 Jan p 5 col 2 So may CHORTLE the Anthropophagi MI "
Slang and its analogues past and present: A dictionary, historical ..., Volume 2
By William Ernest Henley Page 103
February 9, 2013
bilby commented on the word chortle
*snorckles*
February 9, 2013
ruzuzu commented on the word chortle
Ha.
February 10, 2013
marky commented on the word chortle
funny slideshow http://dictionary.reference.com/slideshows/laugh#chortle
June 23, 2014