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Laugh   Listen
verb
Laugh  v. i.  (past & past part. laughed; pres. part. laughing)  
1.
To show mirth, satisfaction, or derision, by peculiar movement of the muscles of the face, particularly of the mouth, causing a lighting up of the face and eyes, and usually accompanied by the emission of explosive or chuckling sounds from the chest and throat; to indulge in laughter. "Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er." "He laugheth that winneth."
2.
Fig.: To be or appear gay, cheerful, pleasant, mirthful, lively, or brilliant; to sparkle; to sport. "Then laughs the childish year, with flowerets crowned." "In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble Joy."
To laugh at, to make an object of laughter or ridicule; to make fun of; to deride. "No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more."
To laugh in the sleeve, To laugh up one's sleeve, to laugh secretly, or so as not to be observed, especially while apparently preserving a grave or serious demeanor toward the person or persons laughed at.
To laugh out, to laugh in spite of some restraining influence; to laugh aloud.
To laugh out of the other corner of the mouth or To laugh out of the other side of the mouth, to weep or cry; to feel regret, vexation, or disappointment after hilarity or exaltation. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Laugh" Quotes from Famous Books



... I. Laugh with us at the prince and the palace, In the wild wood-life there is better cheer; Would you board your mirth from your neighbour's malice, Gather it up in our garners here. Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring, While by their foes ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mark I aim at. We'll thrive, and laugh. You are the purchaser, and there's the payment. (Giving a pocket book.) He thinks you rich; and so you shall be. Enquire for titles, and deal hardly; 'twill look ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... and hear her, to examine into the case, to see whether it was really one of possession, or whether the woman was not counterfeiting. She gnashed her teeth,—she imitated the cry of an elephant with a dreadful countenance; she affected to laugh when she saw the religious, and ordered him to go away, saying that she did not care about him, but she was afraid of him who hid himself. The Saint, who was in prayer, having heard this, came into the room, where this woman was speaking without ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... tree, and, in his descent, injured his testicles, which swelled up amazingly. Etowigezhig laughed at him, which so incensed the young fellow that he suddenly picked up a pot-hook and struck him on the skull. It fractured it, and killed him. So he died for a laugh. He was a good-natured man, about forty-five, and a good hunter. I gave the skull to Mr. Toulmin Smith, a ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... you don't laugh. Still, it won't matter much if you do laugh; they'd think it was in your sleep. Only take care you don't really fall asleep when they ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... asceticism, I appear in the guise of asceticism in his mind, and thus he is prevented from knowing me, and the man of learning, who with the object of attaining salvation desires to destroy me, I frolic and laugh in the face of such a man intent on salvation. I am the everlasting one without a compeer, whom no creature can kill or destroy. For this reason thou too, O prince, divert thy desires (Kama) to Virtue, so that, by this means, thou mayst attain what is well for thee. Do ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Jackson. He was wont to make cruel lunges with his stick at what he called "the spruce books" on Murray's shelves, generally striking the doomed volume, and by no means improving the bindings. "I was sometimes, as you will guess," Murray used to say with a laugh, "glad to get rid of him." Here, in 1807, was published "Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery;" in 1809, the Quarterly Review; and, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... lodged at a woman's, who was, they said, a Druidess, and had the prophetic faculty. One day when he was settling his account with her, she complained of his extreme parsimony: "Thou'rt too stingy, Diocletian," said she; and he answered laughing, "I'll be prodigal when I'm emperor." "Laugh not," rejoined she: "thou'lt be emperor when thou hast slain a wild boar" (aper). The conversation got about amongst Diocletian's comrades. He made his way in the army, showing continual ability and valor, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... noise of cursing and threatening, and this so angered me that it overmastered my fear, which had till then been considerable. I remembered also a rule which a wise man once told me for guidance, and it is this: 'God disposes of victory, but, as the world is made, when men smile, smile; when men laugh, laugh; when men hit, hit; when men shout, shout; and when men curse, curse you also, my son, and in doubt let them always ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... Chief's daughter. By her father's house BRIGHT WATER is being dressed for bridal by her young companions. They braid her hair, paint her face, tie her moccasins, and arrange her beads over the robe of white doeskin; they laugh as they work and are happily important as is the custom of bridesmaids. The older women are winnowing grain ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin

... weary man. I loved his father then, I love the son now. Two full generations have been taught by his gentleness and smiles, and tears have quickly answered to the command of his artistic mind. Long may he live to make us laugh and cry, and cry and laugh by turns as he may choose ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... rather low tones. The rest of us had been soberly sipping our tea, and when the Doctor and the Annexes stopped talking there was one of those dead silences which are sometimes so hard to break in upon, and so awkward while they last. All at once Number Seven exploded in a loud laugh, which startled everybody at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to the "Gallery," who would enjoy a loud laugh against Mistress Gadabout. The end of the sentence must speak to the heart of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... in his place, and preserved the same countenance, when the Venetian repeated his insulting demand in French. He thought the prince understood neither French nor Italian; and, addressing himself with a contemptuous laugh to the company, said "Pray, gentlemen, tell me how I must make myself understood to this fool." At the same time he rose and prepared to seize the prince by the arm. His patience forsook the latter; he grasped the Venetian with a strong hand, and threw him violently on the ground. The company rose ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Ladyship ," said Mrs. Downe Wright, with a well got-up, good-humoured laugh. "A woman has only not to be a wit or a genius, and there is no fear of her; not that I have that antipathy to a clever woman that many people have, and especially the gentlemen. I almost quarrelled with Mr. Headley, the great author, t'other ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... you that I am making a computation far in excess of what is probable, if I say that an inch of coral limestone may be added to one of these reefs in the course of a year. I think most naturalists would be inclined to laugh at me for making such an assumption, and would put the growth at certainly not more than half that amount. But supposing it is so, what a very curious notion of the antiquity of some of these great living pyramids comes out by a very ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... said H. relating to this writer his first interview, "Jemmy Whiteley surveyed me from head to foot with a grinning drollery, that no words can describe; he spat out, according to custom, about a score of times, and after a tittering laugh was proceeding to speak, when he was suddenly called off." "Stay here," said he, "I'll be back in a minute or two." As he was leaving the room he stopped at the door—looked back at me again—pulled up his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... strong at spinning sham reasons nor subtle at weaving false conscience; but, to his mind, the very fact that the system had so degraded a man that he could laugh and dance and sing, while other men took his wages, his wife, and homestead, was the crowning argument against the system. Then the political economists beset him, proving that without forced labor Russia must sink into ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... twice happened to me," continued Anton, "whose caution you so often laugh at, to speak unguardedly to strangers about the circumstances of this family. The first time that I asked help for the Rothsattels it was refused me, and this, more than any thing else, led me out of the counting-house ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... my goods," answered Evan, with a laugh. "If there is a levy in the camp there will be men who will need watching ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... seated in our hut when my vakeel announced that Kamrasi had arrived to pay me a visit. In a few minutes he was ushered into the hut. Far from being abashed, he entered with a loud laugh, totally different from his former dignified manner. "Well, here you are at last!" he exclaimed. Apparently highly amused with our wretched appearance, he continued, "So you have been to the M'wootan N'zige! ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... They despise and laugh at auguries, and the other vain and superstitious ways of divination, so much observed among other nations; but have great reverence for such miracles as cannot flow from any of the powers of Nature, and look on them as effects and indications of the presence of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... Conduct on the street should always be reserved. It is bad form to loudly laugh or to boldly glance at ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green

... said the Jackal, with an impudent laugh, 'will condescend to take hold of the tip of my brush with your trunk, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... phraseology, and the use of words we are inclined to avoid in our own speech, because they mark a lack of cultivation. We test them by the standards of polite society, and ignore them, or condemn them, or laugh at them as abnormal or illogical or indicative of ignorance. So far as literature goes, the speech of the common people has little interest for us because it is not the recognized literary medium. These two reasons ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... on his Poems late in life, Wordsworth said of this one:—'The effect of her laugh is an extravagance; though the effect of the reverberation of voices in some parts of the mountains is very striking. There is, in the "Excursion," an allusion to the bleat of a lamb thus re-echoed, and described without any exaggeration, as I heard it, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... seems to you, eh? Your imagination is working overtime again, Muller," said the commissioner with a laugh. But the laugh turned to seriousness as he realised how many times Muller's imagination had helped the clumsy official mind to its proudest triumphs. The commissioner was an intelligent man, as far as his lights ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... return—and here I was coldly and peremptorily called upon to go forth and arrest and deliver to Camp Elliott on its hill "Mac," the pride of the census, with a promise of $25 reward for the trouble. "Mac" desert? It was to laugh. But naturally after six weeks of unceasing repetition of that pink set of questions "Mac's" throat was a bit dry and he could scarcely be expected to return at once to the humdrum life of camp ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... if I write but two lines. You have no notion how I laughed at Mrs. Goldsworthy's "talking from hand to mouth."(511) How happy I am that you have Mr. Chute still with you; you would have been distracted else with that simple woman; for fools prey upon one when one has no companion to laugh Them off. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... moods, when it prompts sentiments and declarations that are very little in accordance with its real impulses. I was so much ashamed of what I had just said, and, in truth, so much frightened, that, instead of attempting to laugh it off, as a silly, unmeaning opinion, or endeavouring to explain that this was not my own way of thinking, I walked on some distance in silence, myself, and suffered my companion to imitate me in this particular. I have since had ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... postage-stamp looks better than the receipt stamp upon blue paper. If you are W. Brown, and you didn't see the I. O. U. signed, and can't find anybody who knows Jones's autograph, and Jones won't pay, the I. O. U. will be of no use to you in the county court, except to make the judge laugh. He will, however, allow you to prove the consideration, and as, of course, you won't be prepared to do anything of the sort, he will, if you ask him politely, adjourn the hearing for a week, when you ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... late," he added, grinning at me; "I am afraid I can't do business with you, more especially as the master is not at home. What book have you brought?" Taking the book out of my pocket, I placed it on the counter. The young fellow opened the book, and inspecting the title-page, burst into a loud laugh. "What do you laugh for?" said I, angrily, and half clenching my fist. "Laugh!" said the young fellow; "laugh! who could help laughing?" "I could," said I; "I see nothing to laugh at; I want to exchange ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Expressive Movements.—Laugh accompanied by raisings and droppings of arms when pleasure is great (299). Arm-movements that seemed like defensive movements (314). "Crowing" a sign of pleasure ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... laughing, "I told you, Joey, that I had been a captain's clerk on board the Weasel, a fourteen-gun brig; I wrote the captain's despatches for him; and here are two of them of which I kept copies, that I might laugh over them occasionally. I wrote all his letters; for he was no great penman in the first place, and had a very great confusion of ideas in the second. He certainly was indebted to me, as you will acknowledge, when you hear what I read and tell you. I served under him, cruising in ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... do ye worship? Or do ye worship any gods? There are those who have no gods to worship. The philosophers who wear long beards and brown cloaks have no gods to worship. They wrangle with each other in the porticoes. The [ ] laugh at them. ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde

... do know: once this spirit of mine, that now by the workings of destiny for a little while occupies the body of a fourth-rate auctioneer, and of the editor of a trade journal, dwelt in that of a Pharaoh of Egypt—never mind which Pharoah. Yes, although you may laugh and think me mad to say it, for me the legions fought and thundered; to me the peoples bowed and the secret sanctuaries were opened that I and I alone might commune with the gods; I who in the flesh and after it myself ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... me to believe," said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, "that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey?—that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of worsted-work patterns ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... small. In him there is nothing of the mystic, the hermit, or the sybarite. He has great joy of life, and this joy is true, honest, and real, and never simulated. He drinks in life at every pore, and gives forth life that invigorates and inspires whomsoever it touches. His laugh is the expression of his wholesome nature; his words are jewels of discrimination; his every sentence bears a helpful message; his fine sense of humor mellows and illumines every situation; and his face always shows forth the ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... assurance in the youthful manner; he was disturbed because she was to drive him home, instead of his driving her. Shouldn't he have a shot? They hadn't a car at Robin Hill since the War, of course, and he had only driven once, and landed up a bank, so she oughtn't to mind his trying. His laugh, soft and infectious, was very attractive, though that word, she had heard, was now quite old-fashioned. When they reached the house he pulled out a crumpled letter which she read while he was washing—a quite short letter, which must ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Swain, who has been ill, turned up at the women's meeting—in all, twenty-one. At first few were able to follow what was read, but now they enjoy it and laugh at the jokes. I always give a short address at the end, and only hope it may be a ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... Bryda said, with a little laugh, as she sprang to her feet, waved her hand to Jack Henderson, and disappeared under the blossoming apple trees. He longed to follow her, but as she did not ask him to do so, he turned towards his home ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... to restrain a laugh, but the captain hastily unbuckled the flap of his saddle-bags and brought out a huge package of plug tobacco which he ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Cavour sent against him the army of Northern Italy, who was the weaker party then? The tyrant and his minions; and the majority was with the noble Italian patriots, struggling for liberty. I never heard that Old England sent deputations to King Bomba, and yet his troops resisted bravely there. [Laugh-ter and interruption.] To-day the majority of the people of Rome is with Italy. Nothing but French bayonets keeps her from going back to the kingdom of Italy, to which she belongs. Do you sympathize with the minority in Rome or the majority in Italy? [A voice: ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... what ease the gaiety of their tempers enables them to bear misfortunes which to us would be insupportable. Families, whom the calamities of war have reduced from the height of luxury to the want of common necessaries, laugh, dance, and sing, comforting themselves with this reflection—Fortune de guerre. Their young ladies take the utmost pains to teach our officers French; with what views I know not, if it is not that they may hear themselves praised, flattered, and courted without ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... laugh followed this sally, and the Reverend Superior went off merrily, as he hastened to catch up with the Governor, who had moved on to another point in the line ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... in earnest that the republic should condescend to provide playthings for her imprisoned criminals?" asked Petion, with a scornful laugh. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... saving sense of humor tempered Miss Carrington's seriousness, and Geoffrey Ormond joined in her merry laugh. In spite of his love of ease and frivolous badinage, he was, as I was to learn some day, considerably less of a good-natured fool than it occasionally pleased ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... either so many stupid platitudes or themselves needed an interpreter; lofty titles, arbitrarily assumed, and to which the inventors had not condescended to attach any explanation that should acquit them of the folly of assuming temporal rank, power, and titles of nobility, made the world laugh, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... bishop or ecclesiastic without leave from Rome. "True enough, he cannot be 'deposed,'" cried the young king, "but by a shove like this he may be clean thrust out!" and he suited the action to the words. A laugh ran round the assembly at the king's jest; but Hilary, taking no notice of the hint, went on to urge that no layman, not even the king, could by the law of Rome confer ecclesiastical dignity or exemptions without the Pope's leave and confirmation. "What ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... he yelled, snatching off his hat. "This ain't so damn funny for Chino here!" He passed the hat among the crowd. They tossed in gold, good-naturedly, abundantly, with a laugh. Nobody knows what amount was dumped into the astounded Chino's old sombrero; but the mare was certainly not worth over fifteen dollars. If some one had dragged Chino before that same gathering under unsupported accusation of any sort, it ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... His own conduct with the little creature was like all the rest of him. He would go to the nursery, much to Betty's alarm, and take up the baby; be charming with it for about ten minutes, then suddenly dump it back into its cradle, stare at it gloomily or utter a laugh, and go out. Sometimes, he would come up when Gyp was there, and after watching her a little in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... now lighted kitchen. "It's something the old woman got for her party, that didn't come off," he said, apologetically. "I reckon we can pick out enough for a spread. That darned Chinaman wouldn't come with me," he added, with a laugh, "because, he said, he'd knocked off work 'allee same, Mellican man!' Look here, Slinn," he said, with a sudden decisiveness, "my pay-roll of the men around here don't run short of a hundred and fifty dollars a day, and yet I couldn't get a ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... my devils—my facetious devil—and he made me laugh. "By all means," said he, "let us get together a few eager poets, and establish a Society for the Propagation of Lunacy. Let us break down these conventions and confound the eyes of the fat and greasy citizens, and win freedom for our souls at any price. Let us wear strange ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... goin' to get 'em," and then, fiercely "for your sake, because I love you—now laugh," ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... reckoned in terms of time," he put in with a short laugh. "If they were I'd be the most solitary person ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... much for the widow's gravity. She began to laugh hysterically, her black eyes dancing all the time in the merriest fashion at her host. It was so infectious that in a moment ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... well," he said, with a laugh. "Hob and Bill would scarce know their clothes again if they saw them on you. No, no," he added, as Albert put his hand into his pouch, "there is no need for money, lads; they will be mightily content with ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... Garvington, you are the luckier of the two, as you have a wife who is far above rubies, and—and—dear me, I am talking romance. So foolish at my age. To think—well—well, I am extremely hungry, so don't let luncheon be long before it appears," and with a croaking laugh at his jokes the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... to a town where a king reigned, who had an only daughter who was so serious that no one could make her laugh; therefore the king had given out that whoever should make her laugh should have her in marriage. The Simpleton, when he heard this, went with his goose and his hangers-on into the presence of the king's daughter, and as soon as she saw ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... roared. "There is no Sir John Killigrew this time upon whom you can shift the quarrel. Come you to me and get the punishment of which that whiplash is but an earnest." Then with a thick laugh he drove spurs into his horse's flanks, so furiously that he all but sent the parson ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... broad, steep rock, and slid ungracefully to the foot of it, his elbows digging frantically into the moss, and his legs straddled apart. As he struck bottom, he imagined he heard a most delicious little laugh. So real was the illusion that he gripped two handfuls of moss and looked about sharply, but of course saw nothing. The ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... had a pleasant laugh. "Oh," he said, "I'm used to it. Isn't there a village with a hotel in it, a mile or two ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... a good one. Now, Lady Wit, those who win may laugh. But I was a blind fool ever to allow her to obtain that promise ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce

... said Nicolete, with her pretty laugh. "I dreamed I should have a visitor to-day, and told Susan to lay the lunch for two. You mustn't be surprised at that," she added mischievously; "it has often happened before. I dream that dream every other night, and Susan ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... rain, becomes the breath of woods, and the soil and the newly plowed fields give out an odor that dilates the sense. How the buds of the trees swell, how the grass greens, how the birds rejoice! Hear the robins laugh! This will bring out the worms and the insects, and start the foliage of the trees. A summer shower has more copiousness and power, but this has the charm of freshness ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... still hesitated, parleying with the sufferer until the ship's bell struck, when, with a triumphant mocking laugh from the stranger, the vessel suddenly fell to pieces, amid the rushing of waters which at once involved the dying man, the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... always doing something sprightly, either making him laugh or laughing at him, talking to the horses, planning some little surprise for their occasional dinners in the Bronson cabin, quoting some fragment of poetry from an outland song,—she called these songs "outlandish," ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... cannot ignore it or disregard it. Has any human being a right to look on at human suffering, and turn away contemptuously? to see men drowning and refuse to throw them the plank which lies conveniently by? to pass by the chamber of dying, with loud, unseemly revels? to titter and laugh alongside of the grave where an unrecognized brother is being buried? to feast upon costly wines and far-fetched elaborate viands at tables overloaded with fresh flowers and artistic gold, while the pallid faces of a hundred hungry ones are looking ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... to laugh when she was well out of sight of the house, in a green meadow bestarred with the white and gold of daisies. A wind, odour-freighted, blew daintily across it. Anne leaned against a white birch tree in the corner and laughed heartily, as she was apt to do whenever she thought of Ludovic ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... too pitiful to laugh at with any degree of comfort. The pathos of the situation is almost too apparent. That is one reason why he is allowed to go on as he is. It is why no one has the heart to try to correct him. What can you say to a man whose confidence in his power to please you is ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... to dine with Sam's sister. Malmo's funny ways made everybody laugh. When Sam said, "Malmo, go sit in my hat," he went at once. He curled himself up in it, and nodded ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous

... I could get so much fun out of nothing as you seem able to," said the brakeman, who was particularly down on tramps. "I reckon the super'll give you something to laugh about directly that won't seem so funny," ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... interrupting him, "I am not fitted for the place of ostler—moreover, I refused the place of ostler at a public-house, which was offered to me only a few days ago." The postillion burst into a laugh. "Ostler at a public-house, indeed! why, you would not compare a berth at a place like that with the situation of ostler at my inn, the first road-house in England! However, I was not thinking of the place of ostler for you; you are, as you say, not fitted for it, at any rate, not ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... Nancy, and both little figures were immersed in the stream. Happily the water was not very deep, and after a few minutes' scrambling they were on dry ground, considerably sobered by their immersion. Teddy began to laugh a little shamefacedly, but Nancy ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... of his dignity, and burst into a hearty laugh. Gabrielle blushed deeply and faltered until I proceeded a ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... them, we can be cracking our jokes.' But these proved to be rather unpleasant ones, to one at least of the party, who, nevertheless, as she could not foresee what was coming, was the first to laugh at ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

... time, but had good cause to remember it before midnight. On they pushed past the picket guard and on to a side road which it was said would bring them around to the north side of Maasin. Both were in fairly good humor by this time, and the major told many an anecdote of army life which made Ben laugh outright. The major saw that his companion was indeed "blue," and was bound to dispel the blues if it ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... degrees of the same stimulus; as warmth, light, aromatic or volatile odours, become painful by their excess; and the tickling on the soles of the feet in children is a painful sensation at the very time it produces laughter. When the pleasurable ideas, which excite us to laugh, pass into pain, we use some exertion, as a scream, to relieve the pain, but soon stop it again, as we are unwilling to lose the pleasure; and thus we repeatedly begin to scream, and stop again alternately. So that in laughing ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... me laugh. What a queer fellow he is. In my opinion it is more pleasant to kiss the dog than to kiss Marfa," added Akhineyev, and, turning around, he ...
— The Slanderer - 1901 • Anton Chekhov

... that if Grimaud's name were to appear in my will—" The duke began to laugh; then addressing Raoul, who, from the commencement of this conversation, had sunk into a profound reverie, "Young man," said he, "I know there is to be found here a certain De Vouvray wine, and I believe—" Raoul left the room precipitately to order the wine. In the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... should reach that, I should be more than satisfied and more than happy; you will judge how happy I am! I read the second number here last night to the most prodigious and uproarious delight of the circle. I never saw or heard people laugh so. You will allow me to observe that my reading of the Major has merit." What a valley of the shadow he had just been passing, in his journey through his Christmas book, has before been told; but always, and with only too much eagerness, he sprang up under pressure. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... the laugh that broke from the party swelled to a roar when "Uncle Joe" chuckled: "Put up yout weapons, children; I ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... these remarks, Mrs. Oliphant's explanation seems the true one; they are most of them sparkling bits of Mrs. Carlyle's conversation. She, happily for herself, had a lively wit, and, perhaps not so happily, a biting tongue, and was, as Carlyle tells us, accustomed to make him laugh, as they drove home together from London crushes, by far from genial observations on her fellow-creatures, little recking—how should she? —that what was so lightly uttered was being engraven on the tablets of the most marvellous of memories, and was destined long ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... questions de Servitutibus are discussed in the Institutes (l. ii. tit. iii.) and Pandects, (l. viii.) Cicero (pro Murena, c. 9) and Lactantius (Institut. Divin. l. i. c. i.) affect to laugh at the insignificant doctrine, de aqua de pluvia arcenda, &c. Yet it might be of frequent use among litigious neighbors, both ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... growth of the colony in wealth brought to their daughters, besides variety and richness of dress, a love of cosmetics. Dunton tells positively of one painted face in Boston in 1686. He said, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting dares hardly laugh." One New England minister thus reproved and warned the women of his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... lived in fear. While Mpepe was alive, he too was regaled with the same fulsome adulation, and now they curse him. They are very foul-tongued; equals, on meeting, often greet each other with a profusion of oaths, and end the volley with a laugh. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... have a good many stories about their priests, which they laugh about, and yet they obey them, no matter how ignorant they are. Abu Selim in the Meena used to tell me this story: Once there was a priest who did not know how to count. This was a great trial to him, as the Greeks have so many fasts and feasts ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... and head came under my observation last; but on these my eyes dwelt longest, scanning them over and over, until I at length, despite the pain I was suffering, burst out into a sonorous laugh! If I had been dying, I could not have helped it; there was something so comic, so irresistibly ludicrous, in the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... 'wooing' were wasted on them, for they have no sense of antagonism, and seek not by any means to elude men. They meet men even as rivers meet the sea. Even as, when fresh water meets salt water in the estuary, the two tides revolve in eddies and leap up in foam, so do these men and women laugh and wrestle in the rapture of concurrence. How different from the first embrace which marks the close of a wooing! that moment when the man seeks to conceal his triumph under a semblance of humility, and the woman her humiliation ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... I am no muse. Listen to your inspiration comfortably, Ribalta," replied, with a laugh, he whom the vendor of old books received with such original unconstraint. He was evidently accustomed to the eccentricities of the strange merchant. In Rome—for this scene took place in a shop at the end of one of the most ancient streets of the Eternal City, a few ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... subjects of art; he began to have doubts of his impression of the trotting-match, its value, its possibility of importance. The senseless ugliness of the things really hurt him: his worship of beauty was a sort of religion, and their badness was a sort of blasphemy. He could not laugh at them; he wished he could; and his first impulse was to turn and escape from the Fine Arts Department, and keep what little faith in the artistic future of the country he had been able to get together during his long sojourn out of it. Since his return ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... 1777, "Such a one's verses are come out," said I: "Yes," replied Johnson, "and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now—for all I laugh ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... her breath: what white anguish was going to flash into his face when he grasped the situation? Judge then of her amazement, her hesitation whether to be pleased or vexed, to laugh or cry, when, grasping it, he leaped to his feet and in tones of a most limitless, a most unutterable relief, shouted three times running "Gott ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... to him again, it seemed to bring with it words that echoed strangely through his being. And his being seized upon them and gripped them. The voice of Mary Kettering seemed to be commanding him, as if her hostile spirit were hovering near, and he could hear her vulgar laugh disgracing ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... heels together, and again he bowed low. But already Sylvia was getting used to these strange foreign ways, and she no longer felt inclined to laugh; in fact, she rather liked the young Frenchman's grave, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... his mate, with a laugh; "but, skipper, as we are pretty nigh out o' baccy just now, an' as the mission ship is near us, an' the breeze down, I don't see no reason why we shouldn't go aboard an' see whether the reports be true. We go to buy baccy, you know, an' we're not bound to buy ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... live. Evils there are in it and will yet be-why we cannot tell and need not know; the only alternative we have is to take them cheerfully or gloomily, to rebel or to accept the situation. Our duty then is clear. To face the events of life as they come to us, without discouragement or dismay, to laugh at them a little and learn to carry on our lives through them with steadfast heart and smiling face- surely that is the part of wisdom and of true manliness. The ugly things in life seem much less formidable when thus boldly faced than when ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... certainly describe you English as a talking people," continued Eve, laughing. "In the way of society, you are quite as agreeable as a people, who never laugh and seldom ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... piece, as his lordship declares in the preface, 'is to expose the folly of those men, who are arrived at that pitch of impudence and prophaneness, that they think it a piece of wit to deny the Being of a God, and to laugh at that which they cannot argue against.' Such characters are well ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... for Mr. Essex, and will trouble you to send them to him. I again thank you, and trust you will be as friendly free with me, as I have been with you: you know I am a brother monk in every thing but religious and political opinions. I only laugh at the thirty' nine articles: but abhor Calvin as much as I do the Queen of Sweden, for he was as ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... white hair, Does laugh away care, Sitting under the oak, Among the old folk. They laugh at our play, And soon they all say, "Such, such were the joys When we all—girls and boys— In our youth-time were seen On the ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake

... laugh, which that Italian one, one fancies, never could. One ought to have, too, a sort of delicacy about saying much against him; for he is dead, and can make, for the time being at least, no rejoinder. There are dead men whom one is not much ashamed to 'upset' after their death, because ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... relief we discovered that we were driving into Rains's camp a squadron of Nesmith's battalion of Oregon volunteers that we had mistaken for Indians, and who in turn believed us to be the enemy. When camp was reached, we all indulged in a hearty laugh over the affair, and at the fright each party had given the other. The explanations which ensued proved that the squadron of volunteers had separated from the column at the same time that I had when we debouched ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... The swing doors were opened. A girl's musical laugh rang out from the corridor. Tall and elegant, with her black lace skirt trailing upon the floor, her left hand resting upon the shoulder of the man into whose ear she was whispering, and whom she led straight to one of the writing tables, Miss Violet Brown swept into the room. On her right, and ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and looked very sulky. Omrah had perched himself on a tilt of the baggage-wagon with Begum, and was quite out of the Hottentot's reach; for Bremen had told the others what had happened, and there had been a general laugh against Big Adam, who vowed vengeance against little Omrah. The country was now very beautiful and fertile, and the Caffre hamlets were to be seen in all directions. Except visits from the Caffres, who behaved with great decorum when they perceived that the caravan was escorted by the ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... stupid of me," he muttered. "I don't see why I should take all this trouble to help a fellow who is only playing tricks, and will laugh when I ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... friend, I heard them," said Krail. "I swear I actually heard them! And I—well, I admit to you, even though you may laugh at me for being a superstitious fool—I somehow anticipate that something uncanny is about to ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... what had happened before he landed. His rush of thoughts: shame for his own carelessness, gladness that Cadman Sahib was safe above, the meaning of the kid's cry and the tracks they had seen; this rush was broken by another deluge of earth that all but drowned the laugh of Cadman. Skag had jerked back against the wall of earth to avoid being struck by the body of his companion who coughed and laughed again faintly, for his ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... thought he could fill, the latter, remembering the natty uniform of the passenger train's crew, promptly replied that a brakeman's job aboard a passenger train would just suit him, which answer caused the superintendent to break out into a hearty laugh, after he had told Joe that he was several sizes too small to fill that position. But Joe was entirely too much in earnest to be turned away this easily, and drawing himself to his full height, he pleaded that, as he had no home and neither touched tobacco nor strong ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... month, however, and what a holiday it will be! Tell Amy she ought to be here to see the purple of the hills in the early morning; it almost makes up for having no sea. The races have been making St. Mildred's very gay; indeed, we laugh at Wellwood for having brought us here, by way of a quiet place. I never was in the way of so much ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... enlist under his banner, O'Connell said, "Whoever shall support him, his shop shall be deserted; no man shall pass his threshold. Put up his name as a traitor to Ireland; let no man deal with him; let no woman speak to him; let the children laugh him to scorn." Mr. Shiel likewise opposed a candidate for the county of Clonmel in the following words: "If any Catholic should vote for him, I will supplicate the throne of the Almighty that he may be shown mercy in the next world; but I ask no mercy for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... nature for bungling its job. If Richard had genius, my intervention would be superfluous. He has none. He is dull. You must realize it. But since he has known me, has felt my influence, has been subject to my volition, my sorcery, you may call it,—" his laugh was disagreeably conscious,—"he has developed the shadow of a great man. He will seem a great composer. I shall make him think he is one. I shall make the world believe it, also. It is my fashion of squaring a life I hate. But ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... laughing. It did not feel a pleasant laugh, but I was glad to think that it sounded like any other. "Oh, it went off exactly as I might have expected," I said, knowing that it was useless to hide my humiliation, though I might hide my misery. "And consequently, my car and I will also go off, to-morrow. As for Dick, he must do as he ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... company. We want a full-sized portrait—big and important. Mr. Eggleston is a good deal of a man, you know, and there's a business side to it—business side to most everything in the Street," this came with a half-laugh. "I'll tell you about that later. You never saw him, of course. No?—he's so busy he doesn't get around much uptown. Fine, large, rather imposing-looking—white hair, red face and big hands—lots of color about him—ought to paint him, I suppose, with his hand on a globe, or some ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... stream of water, while my father only laughed at her. Mr B.—Why, then, if she had possessed as much courage, perhaps she would have laughed too. T.—Indeed, I believe she might; for I have sometimes seen her laugh at herself, when it was over, for being so cowardly. Mr B.—Why, then, it is possible that when these men found they were so well able to defend themselves against the bears, they might no longer be afraid of them; and, not being afraid, they would not be unhappy. ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... an excellent night," Michael Petroff continued with a bright happy laugh. "Really excellent. I had a dream—," he added, smiling and gazing out into the garden with his right eye half closed. "Yes, indeed!—Now do come into my office, my friend. I have news. After you!" He laid his hand on the little lawyer's shoulder and with ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... is absolutely a fact all the same. I can't tell you here the romance of my life. I couldn't do it in surroundings like these. We will go on to your rooms presently, and then I will make a clean breast of the whole thing to you. You may be disposed to laugh at me for a sentimentalist, but I should like to stay here a little longer, if it is only now and again to hear a word or two from her lips. If you will push those flowers across between me and the light I shall be ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... Crow cawing at the top of his lungs, and he knew by the sound that Blacky was getting into mischief of some kind. He heard the sweet voices of happy little singers, and they were good to hear. But most of all he listened to a merry, low, silvery laugh that never stopped but went on and on, until he just felt as if he must laugh too. It was the voice of the Laughing Brook. And as Buster listened it suddenly came to him just what he wanted ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... Lord Coombe's apparently unobserving entrance was perhaps a shock as well as a relief. It took even Feather two or three seconds to break into her bell of a laugh as she shook hands ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... instant the door of Holcomb's cabin swung back and a flow of light streamed out. Sperry halted and stood immovable in a protecting shadow. Thayor moved slowly across the compound. As his foot touched the lower step of the veranda a thin, dry laugh escaped the doctor's ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... of the wheelbarrow, wondering which was the true prophet, his father's Scripture or cautious old Mr. Calamity. As he went on he heard the tap, tap, tap of the cane behind him, and a low laugh at ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... a whip when he merely attempts to kiss her. Later on her behavior so stings him that his self-control breaks down and he seizes her fiercely by the arms. For the first time she realizes that he loves her. "I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying 'Hal, we are quits'; when on disrobing for the night I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me." ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... popular article with the miscellaneous New-Englander at all great gatherings,—cattle-shows and Fourth-of-July celebrations. If Democritus and Heraclitus could walk arm in arm through one of these crowds, the first would be in a broad laugh to see the multitude of young persons who were rejoicing in the possession of one of these useless and worthless little commodities; happy himself to see how easily others could purchase happiness. But the second would weep bitter tears to ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick dark brows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he was. Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... Lily was sent for, not only because the old man cared to see her, but to make Grace feel the outsider that she was. She made desperate efforts to conquer the hated language, but her accent was atrocious. Anthony would correct her suavely, and Lily would laugh in childish, unthinking mirth. She gave ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... another, in allusion to the marriage of the Princess Mary with her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, on the 22nd of July, 1816. To those who have asserted that George Cruikshank "never pandered to sensuality ... or raised a laugh at the expense of decency," that "satire in his hands never degenerated into savagery or scurrility," I would commend the serious consideration of the three ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... and saluted him. "Heaven grant thee good," said Arthur. "And where, Iddawc, didst thou find these little men?" "I found them, lord, up yonder on the road." Then the Emperor smiled. "Lord," said Iddawc, "wherefore dost thou laugh?" "Iddawc," replied Arthur, "I laugh not; but it pitieth me that men of such stature as these should have this island in their keeping, after the men that guarded it of yore." Then said Iddawc, "Rhonabwy, dost thou see the ring with a stone set in it, that is upon the Emperor's hand?" "I see ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... love her better than man ever loved woman; but can I make her my wife? A negro wife! negro children!—ha! ha!' and he clasped his hands above his head, and laughed that bitter, hollow laugh, which is the sure ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Gill and Grim, Gae you together; For you change your shapes Like to the weather: Sib and Tib, Licks and Lull, You all have trickes too: Little Tom Thumb that pipes, Shall goe betwixt you; Tom, tickle up thy pipes Till they be weary; I will laugh ho, ho, hoh, And make me merry. Make a ring on this grasse With your quicke measures: Tom shall play and I will sing For all ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... replied Ned with a laugh. "I've heard there are lots of rats on ships, and maybe he has a patent stuff for getting rid ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... and bred," said I, with an inclination to laugh, which was only checked by my new ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... would, and mother and I would stand and listen to him and try not to laugh. 'Lost, stolen, or strayed, a little witch-girl in a clean white frock, rather too much starched; a frilled cape that crackles when she moves, and a pretty broad-brimmed hat.' Well, Fluffy, what does that mysterious look mean? you are very rude to interrupt the old crier," and ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... could have satisfied the Boers, who had the most exaggerated ideas of their own military prowess and no very high opinion of our own. The continental conception of the British wolf and the Transvaal lamb would have raised a laugh in Pretoria, where the outcome of the war was looked upon as a foregone conclusion. The burghers were in no humour for concessions. They knew their own power, and they concluded with justice that they were for the time far the strongest ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... genius, which was invariably irresistible to the sensitive "novus homo." With Pompey, though he trusted him politically as he never trusted Caesar, Cicero was never so intimate. They had not the same common interests; Cicero could laugh at Pompey behind his back, but hardly once in his correspondence does he attempt to raise a jest ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... not necessary; I did not intend to write novels," said Archie, with a laugh. "But, come, we have bothered Lawrence ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... flame Toward him who scourges the oppressed, And unjust power doth claim, That he may gain some subtle coign By which to overthrow The balance Justice ever holds Alike for friend or foe; For such can never bless mankind By thought or word or deed; They laugh in glee whene'er they see Their victim writhe ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... treats his money like dust," said Parselle, with a short laugh. "I can't think what he sees in her; to me she seems an insatiate animal—and about as difficult to satisfy. It's a jolly good job for Leroy that, thanks to his father's generosity, his income runs into five figures—nothing else would stand ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice



Words linked to "Laugh" :   facial gesture, convulse, laughter, sight gag, sidesplitter, cachinnation, snort, laugh at, haw-haw, utterance, hee-haw, witticism, express feelings, visual joke, bray, humor, titter, belly laugh, express joy, gag, last laugh, dirty joke, bellylaugh, tag line, snigger, chortle, ethnic joke, snicker, joke, punch line, laugh off, cry, giggle, crack up, sick joke, blue joke, one-liner, cachinnate, laugh softly, vocalization, cackle, express emotion, shaggy dog story, in-joke, roar, riot, wit, wow, humour, facial expression, express mirth, chuckle



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