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Humour Sense Full People French Story Gentle Failed

Word humour
WordType (noun)
Phonetic BrE / ˈhjuːmə(r) / NAmE / ˈhjuːmər /
Example
  • a story full of gentle humour
  • she ignored his feeble attempt at humour.
  • they failed to see the humour of the situation.
  • i can't stand people with no sense of humour.
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Content

humour

(noun)BrE / ˈhjuːmə(r) / NAmE / ˈhjuːmər /
  1. the quality in something that makes it funny or amusing; the ability to laugh at things that are amusing
    • a story full of gentle humour
    • She ignored his feeble attempt at humour.
    • They failed to see the humour of the situation.
    • I can't stand people with no sense of humour.
    • Whatever you do, don’t lose your sense of humour.
    • She smiled with a rare flash of humour.
    • She has her very own brand of humour.
    • The film is only funny if you appreciate French humour (= things that cause French people to laugh).
  2. the state of your feelings or mind at a particular time
    • see also good humour
      https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/good-humour
    • to be in the best of humours
    • The meeting dissolved in ill humour.
    • to be out of humour (= in a bad mood)
  3. one of the four liquids that were thought in the past to be in a person’s body and to influence health and character
  4. Extra Examples

    • Her good humour was restored by the excellent meal.
    • Her speech was serious, but not without the occasional touch of humour.
    • His colleagues soon got fed up with his schoolboy humour.
    • The man who lost his shoes failed to see the humour of the situation.
    • The movie uses humour to make its points.
    • The remarks were made in good humour.
    • The stories are full of humour.
    • This movie takes crude gross-out humour to a new low.
    • With wry humour, they laugh at their misfortunes.
    • a television sitcom with its own peculiar brand of humour
    • to have a dry/good/great/warped/weird/wicked sense of humour
    • He has a good sense of humour.
    • I can’t stand people with no sense of humour.
    • It was a story full of gentle humour.
    • The film is only funny if you appreciate French humour.
    • Whatever you do, don’t lose your sense of humour.

    Word Origin

    • Middle English: via Old French from Latin humor ‘moisture’, from humere ‘be moist’. The original sense was ‘bodily fluid’ (surviving in aqueous humour and vitreous humour); it was used specifically for any of the cardinal humours (sense (3)), which led to the sense ‘mental disposition’ (thought to be caused by the relative proportions of the humours). This led, in the 16th cent., to the senses ‘mood’ (sense (2)) and ‘whim’, hence to humour someone ‘to indulge a person's whim’. Sense (1) dates from the late 16th cent.
Copyright This card's content is collected from the following dictionaries: Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

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