laughterとは意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Middle English laughter, laghter, laȝter, from 古期英語 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.

発音

• (Received 発音) IPA^(key): /ˈlɑːftə/
• (General American) enPR: lăfʹtər, IPA^(key): /ˈlæftɚ/
• 韻: -ɑːftə(ɹ), -æftə(ɹ)

	Recorded laughter of a person.
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名詞

laughter (usually uncountable, 複数形 laughters)

1. 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.

2. 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 1008551266:

     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 51433663:

     Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter.

3. (archaic) A reason for merriment.

使用する際の注意点

Laughter is statistically the happiest English language word on Twitter according to the Hedonometer, an online tool that measures happiness, with an overall happiness score of 8.5 out of 9, followed by happiness, which scored 8.44, and love, which scored 8.42.

関連する語

• laugh

アナグラム

• laughtre