Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Humorous |
HumorousAdjective1. Full of or characterized by humor; "humorous stories"; "humorous cartoons"; "in a humorous vein". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "humorous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references) |
Etymology: Humorous \Hu"mor*ous\, adjective. [Compare to Latin humorosus, umorosus, moist. See Humor.]. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
simple:ComedyComedy to start with was any play that ended happily such as in Shakespeare. It is now considered a (maybe so-called) humorous performance in the performing arts such as theater/theatre (including stand-up) television and film. People are divided about what is funny-some people prefer the slapstick approach, others prefer a gentler sort of humour. One interpretation of comedy is when things seem normal (in a joke for instance) and suddenly things get turned on their head.
See also tragedy, tragicomedy, List of comedies, laughter
- Commedia dell'arte
- Comedians
- Vaudeville
- Sketch comedy
- Stand-up comedy
- Improvisational comedy
- Situation comedy
- Farce
- Comedy film
- Comedy club
- British comedian
- List of comedians
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Comedy."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Humour (humor in American English) is a form of entertainment and a form of human communication, intended to make people laugh and feel happy. The origins of the word are in the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, the word meaning fluid.Further references:
There are different types of humour which appeal to different sectors of humanity - for instance, slapstick is particularly popular with young children, while satire tends to be more popular with the older and better-educated. Humour is usually localized and does not easily transfer from one culture to another. This happens because humour is often context sensitive and someone not understanding the context will usually not understand the humour. Various techniques are used to deliver humour:
- Clowns
- Comedy and Comedians
- Comedy film
- Comicss
- Internet humor
- Jokes
- Practical jokes and pranks
- Professional humour, e.g. lawyer jokes
- Ribaldry
- Toilet humour
- Humour in crime fiction
there are many more
- Slapstick
- Joke
- Sarcasm
- Satire
- Parody
- Adages, often in the form of parody "lawss" of nature
- Practical joke: deliberately luring someone into a humourous position and then laughing at their expense
- Silly acts inappropriate for the situation or age of person
- Fake stern manner that is inappropriate in a comic setting
- Ridiculous gestures and movements
- Deliberate ambiguity and confusion with reality (such as in Andy Kaufman's humour)
- Play of words such as oxymorons, puns etc.
- Unexpected outcome, such as a witty punchline.
- Wit, as in many one-liners.
- Absurdity
- Triple
- Irony
- Humorous "Lawss" such as Murphy's law
- Self inflicted embarrassing situation, e.g. losing one's swimming trunks after a dive.
- Comic sounds or inherently funny words with certain sounds that make them amusing in a particular language
- Self-degradation (such as in Rodney Dangerfield's humor)
- Faking stupidity
- Pointing out real stupidity (such as the Darwin Awards)
- Stereotyping (such as blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, racial jokes etc.)
- Inflicting pain (such as kick in the groin or in the movie "Home Alone", etc)
It has been claimed that humour cannot be explained. However, attempts can be made, such as this one:
Perhaps the essence of humour is the presentation of something familar to a person, so they think they know the natural follow-on thought or conclusion, then providing a twist through presentation of the opposite of what was expected, or else the natural result of interpreting the original situation in a different, less common, way. For example:
A man speaks to his doctor after an operation. He says, "Doc, now that the surgery is done, will I be able to play the piano?" The doctor replies "Of course!" The man says "Good, because I couldn't before!"
Studies of humour:
There also exist linguistic and psycholinguistic studies or humour, irony, parody and pretense. Some prominent theoreticians of this field are:
- Aristotle - The Poetics, Part V
- Sigmund Freud - Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Users of some psychoactive drugs tend to find humour in many more situations and events than one normally would.
- Raymond Gibbs
- Herbert Clark
- Salvatore Attardo
One notable trait of Australians, inherited from the British, is the use of deadpan humor, in which the joker will make an outrageous or ridiculous statement without explicitly indicating they are joking. Americans visiting Australia have gained themselves a reputation for gullibility and a lack of a sense of humor by not recognising that tales of kangaroos hopping across the Sydney Harbour Bridge are examples of this propensity.
See also
- laughter
- Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Humour."
Synonyms: HumorousSynonyms: facetious, merry, pleasant. (additional references) |
| Antonym: humorless (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Wit | Adjective: witty, attic; quick-witted, nimble-witted; smart; jocular, jocose, humorous; facetious, waggish, whimsical; kidding, joking, puckish; playful; merry and wise; pleasant, sprightly, light, spirituel, sparkling, epigrammatic, full of point, ben trovato; comic. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Mr. Watson, I am not a humorous man, but if you insist on taking up my class time making jokes, please see to it that they are funny (Soul Man; writing credit: Carol Black) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Humorous Flights (1929) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Main Street? : yeh, this is Main Street : now who was the humorous guy told yuh ... Credit: Library of Congress. |  | A New humorous song, on the Cherokee chiefs Inscribed to the ladies of Great Britain : To the tune of, Caesar and Pompey were both of the horned / / by H. Howard. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Earl & Jensch's humorous banterers handing the public, Will F. Phillips' complicated comedy, A bell boy. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Ass City Marathon" by Mark Davis Commentary: "Downtown Toledo, Ohio displaying the upcoming marathon in a humorous way." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption |
 | A humorous Mozart-sounding excerpt for piano. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree | Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | His horny beak was partly open, and his fierce, humorous eyes, under brows like fingernails, stared straight ahead |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Humorous" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.87% of the time. "Humorous" is used about 443 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.87% | 438 | 13,172 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.13% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 443 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "humorous": humorous poem ♦ humorous sketch ♦ humorous story ♦ in a humorous vein. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "humorous": humorous-looking. | |
Ending with "humorous": half-humorous, helpful-humorous, semi-humorous. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "humorous"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | për të qeshur (comic, comical, hilarious, laughable), me humor, argëtues (amusing, diverting, frolic, jocose, recreative, rollicking, voluptuous). (various references) | |
Arabic | فكه (facetious, jocose, witty), فكاهي (comic, comical, funny, wit), مزوح (frolicsome, jocular, waggish), مضحك (buffoon, burlesque, clown, comedian, comic, comical, comics, droll, farcical, foolish, funny, harlequin, jester, laughable, laughing, ludicrous, merry andrew, ridiculous, risible, silly, wag), هزلي (burlesque, comic, comical, doggie, farcical, funny, joker, prankish, priceless, quizzical, waggish), ظريف (amiable, amicable, amusing, companionable, fine, flowing, gallant, humorist, humourist, jolly, likeable, nice, obliging, pet, pleasing, prepossessing, pretty, quaint, stylish, witty, wry). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | хумористичен (comic, comical), шеговит (facetious, frolic, jesting, jocose, joky, macaronic, merry, pleasant, prankish, quizzical, sportful, tricksy, waggish), комичен (buffo, comic, comical, ragtime), весел (airy, blithe, blithesome, boisterous, bright, buoyant, canty, cheery, chirp, chirpy, colorful, colourful, coltish, convivial, daft, debonair, exhilarated, festal, gamesome, gay, genial, gladsome, gleeful, gleesome, good humoured, good-humored, high, jaunty, jocular, jocund, joky, jolly, jovial, joyful, joyous, light, light hearted, lightsome, lively, mellow, merry, mirthful, peppy, perky, rackety, roistering, rollicking, rorty, rosy, saucy, slaphappy, sparkish, sportive, sporty, sprightly, swinging, upbeat, winsome). (various references) | |
Chinese | 幽默 (humor). (various references) | |
Czech | humorný (jocose, playful, rich), humoristický, zábavný (amusing, delectable, entertaining, light, pleasant, sporting), vtipný (comic, facetious, smart, witty), veselý (blithesome, bright, cheerful, chirpy, convivial, exhilarated, gay, gleeful, happy, high-spirited, hilarious, jaunty, jocund, jolly, jovial, joyous, light hearted, lively, merry, mirthful, pleasant, rollicking, rorty, sportful, vivacious), smìšný (antic, derisory, facetious, funny, laughable, ludicrous, piffling, quizzical, ridiculous, risible), legraèní (amusing, chaffy, comic, comical, facetious, funny, good, piffling), komický (amusing, comic, comical, droll, funny, grotesque, quaint). (various references) | |
Dutch | humoristisch (humourous). (various references) | |
Esperanto | humura (humourous). (various references) | |
Farsi | فکاهی (Jocose, Jocular), خنده اور (Droll, Howler, Ludicrous, Risible), خوش مزه (Taffeta), شوخی امیز (Fun, Jocose, Jocular). (various references) | |
Finnish | humoristinen, leikillinen (jocular, joking, playful). (various references) | |
French | humoriste (humorist). (various references) | |
German | humorvoll (amusing, humorously), humoristisch. (various references) | |
Greek | κωμικόσ (comedian, comic, comical, comocally, facetious, farcical, funny, ragtime), γεμάτος χιούμορ, αστείοσ (comical, droll, funny, jesting, jocose, jocular, ludicrous, quizzical, tickler), διασκεδαστικόσ (amusing, entertaining, killing, recreative). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מבודח (amused), מבדח (amusing, comic, comical, jocose, jocular, playful), מצחיק (amusing, comic, comical, droll, funny, laughable, ludicrous, ridiculous), התולי (comic, comical, facetious, frivolous, mocking). (various references) | |
Hungarian | tréfás (comic, comical, droll, facetious, funny, have a dig at sy, jesting, jocose, jocular, ludicrous, pleasant, rollicking, sportive, waggish), mulatságos (amusing, comic, comical, droll, entertaining, facetious, funny, rich, side-splitting), humoros (facetious). (various references) | |
Indonesian | banyolan (farce, humorous scene, joke). (various references) | |
Italian | umoristico (funny). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 面白可笑しい (funny), ユーモアの感覚 (a sense of humor, Eurailpass, EURATOM, eureka, euro, Euro-, Eurobank, Eurocommunism, Eurocrat, Eurocurrency, Eurodollar, Euromoney, Euronet, European Atomic Energy Community, europium, Europort, Eurosocialism, Eurovision, humoresque, humorist, Israel, Judea, Utah), 滑稽 (comical, funny, joking, laughable, ridiculous). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | おもしろおかしい (funny), ユーモラス , こっけい (comical, funny, joking, laughable, National day, ridiculous, severe punishment). (various references) | |
Korean | 해학. (various references) | |
Norwegian | humoristisk, morsom (funny, jolly). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | umoroushay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | humoroso, que provoca o riso (laughing), engraado, com humor (wittily), com graa. (various references) | |
Romanian | hazliu (amusing, comic, droll, entertaining, funny, gamesome, laughable, waggish), umoristic (comic, facetious, jocular), spiritual (bright, clever, ecclesiastic, ecclesiastical, ghostly, humoursome, immaterial, ingeniously, mental, moral, neat, sacerdotal, sacred, smart, spirited, spiritual, witty), ridicol (clownish, derisive, farcical, foolish, grotesque, laughable, laughably, ludicrous, preposterous, ridicule, ridiculous, ridiculously, risible), plin de umor, glumeţ (amusing, facetious, funny, jestful, jesting, jocose, lively, merry, playful, prankish, sly, wag, witty), comic (clownish, comic, comical, comically, droll, funny, jocular, ludicrous, ludicrously, screaming). (various references) | |
Russian | забавный (a lot of fun, amusing, comical, droll, entertaining, funny, jocund, jokey, sportful). (various references) | |
Scottish | ramhlair. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | humorističan, humoralni, šaljiv (facetious, frolicsome, jesting, jocose, jocular, joking, joky, waggish). (various references) | |
Spanish | humoroso, humoristico, humorístico (jokey, joking), humor (cheer, disposition, humor, humour, mood, spirit, spirits, temper), jocoso (facetious, jocose, jocular), cómico (amusing, comedian, comic, comical, entertaining, funny, laughable, player, zany). (various references) | |
Swedish | humoristisk (humourous, jocular). (various references) | |
Turkish | nükteli (epigrammatic, humoristic, rich, spicy, spirited, waggish, witty), komik (amusing, burlesque, comedian, comic, comical, droll, farcical, funny, funnyman, gilbertian, jesting, jocose, laugh, laughable, laughing, ludicrous, quizzical, rich, ridiculous, risible, rum, rummy), gülünç (amusing, burlesque, camp, comic, derisive, derisory, droll, fantastic, fantastical, foolish, funny, gilbertian, grotesque, jesting, laughable, ludicrous, ridiculous). (various references) | |
Turkmen | gьlkьnз (funny, ridiculous), gьlkьli (funny). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гуморальний (humous), гумористичний (humous), забавний (amusing, diverting, humous), примхливий (arbitrary, capricious, choice, cranky, fanciful, fractious, freak, freakish, huffish, humous, inconstant, maggoty, naughty, notional, notionate, skittish, whimsey, whimsical, whimsy). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | hài hước; hóm hỉnh, khôi hài (buffi, buffo, burlesque, comical, droll, jocose, priceless, ragtime). (various references) | |
Welsh | rhyfedd (bizarre, funny, odd, queer, strange, wonderful), doniol (gifted, witty), digrif (funny, mirthful). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "humorous": humorously, humorousness, humorousnesses. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "humorous": unhumorous. (additional references) | |
| |
"Humorous" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: homorous, huborous, humerous, Humfridus, hummadruz, humorious, humoris, humorosus, humorus, humurous, numorous. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "humorous" (pronounced hyuw"merus) |
| 7 | h y uw" m er u s | humerus. |
| 5 | -uw" m er u s | numerous. |
| 4 | -m er u s | amorous, glamorous, tetramerous, timorous, unglamorous. |
| 3 | -er u s | adulterous, adventurous, avarice, barbarous, boisterous, cancerous, cantankerous, carboniferous, carnivorous, coniferous, dangerous, decorous, fossiliferous, generous, herbivorous, heterosporous, homosporous, insectivorous, lecherous, murderous, odorous, omnivorous, onerous, overgenerous, oviparous, ovoviviparous, phosphorous, phosphorus, ponderous, precancerous, preposterous, prosperous, rancorous, rapturous, rhinoceros, rigorous, slanderous, sonorous, thunderous, traitorous, treacherous, uterus, vigorous, viviparous, vociferous. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "h-m-o-o-r-s-u-u" | |
-1 letter: humours. | |
-2 letters: humors, humour, mohurs. | |
-3 letters: homos, hours, humor, humus, mohur, moors, rooms. | |
-4 letters: homo, hour, hums, mhos, moor, moos, mors, mosh, mush, ohms, oohs, ours, rhos, rhus, roms, room, rums, rush, shmo, shoo, sour, sumo, urus. | |
-5 letters: hum, mho, moo, mor, mos, mus, ohm, oho, ohs, oms, ooh, ors, our, rho, rom, rum, som. | |
| Words containing the letters "h-m-o-o-r-s-u-u" | |
+1 letter: outhumors. | |
+2 letters: humorously, unhumorous. | |
+3 letters: neurohumors. | |
+4 letters: humorousness. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Familiar 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
