# laughter
## English
### Alternative forms

* laughtre (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Middle English laughter, laghter, laȝter, from Old English hleahtor (“laughter, jubilation, derision”), from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz (“laughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *klek-, *kleg- (“to shout”). Cognate with German Gelächter (“laughter, hilarity, merriment”), Danish and Norwegian latter (“laughter”), Icelandic hlátur (“laughter”). More at laugh.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈlɑːftə/
* (General American) enPR: lăfʹtər, IPA: /ˈlæftɚ/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɑːftə(ɹ), -æftə(ɹ)

### Noun

laughter (usually uncountable, plural laughters)
* The sound of laughing, produced by air so expelled; any similar sound.
    Their loud laughter betrayed their presence.
** 1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock:There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town.
* A movement (usually involuntary) of the muscles of the laughing face, particularly of the lips, and of the whole body, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs.
** 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC:The act of laughter, which is caused by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves.
** 1858 October 16, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Courtship of Miles Standish”, in The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter.
* (archaic) A reason for merriment.

#### Derived terms

* canned laughter
* dying laughter
* dying of laughter
* evil laughter
* Homeric laughter
* lack-laughter
* laughter is the best medicine
* laughter lines
* laughter track

#### Related terms

* laugh

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Anagrams

* laughtre

## Middle English
### Alternative forms

* (Early ME) lehter, lihter, leihter, lahter, leahter, hleiter
* lauhtre, laghter, laȝter, lauȝter, laughtere, lauȝtere, laghtre, laughtre, leiȝtir, laȝtir, lauȝtur, laughtir

### Etymology

From Old English hleahtor, from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈlau̯xtər/, /ˈlɛi̯xtər/, /ˈlaxtər/, /ˈlixtər/

### Noun

laughter (plural laughtres)
* Laughter; the production of laughs or snickers.
** a. 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “Book IV”, in Troilus and Criseyde, lines 862–868:She was right swich to seen in hir visage / As is that wight that men on bere binde / Hir face, lyk of Paradys the image / Was al y-chaunged in another kinde. / The pleye, the laughtre men was wont to finde / On hir, and eek hir Ioyes everychone, / Ben fled, and thus lyth now Criseyde allone.She was such to see in her visage / like that woman that men on a bier notice; / Her face which was the image of Paradise / had totally changed to another kind; / the play, the laughter men tended to find / on her, and all her joys as well / had left, and there Cressida now lies alone.
* An instance or bout of laughing or laughter.
* A humorous matter; something worthy of being derided.

#### Descendants

* English: laughter
* Scots: lachter, lauchter

#### References

* “laughter, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-19.