英和和英

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)

名詞

laughter (usually uncountable, 複数形 laughters)

a person's laughter

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:

     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.

3. (archaic) A reason for merriment.

派生語

関連する語

• laugh

アナグラム

• laughtre