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Humour   Listen
noun
Humor  n.  (Written also humour)  
1.
Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the eye, etc. Note: The ancient physicians believed that there were four humors (the blood, phlegm, yellow bile or choler, and black bile or melancholy), on the relative proportion of which the temperament and health depended.
2.
(Med.) A vitiated or morbid animal fluid, such as often causes an eruption on the skin. "A body full of humors."
3.
State of mind, whether habitual or temporary (as formerly supposed to depend on the character or combination of the fluids of the body); disposition; temper; mood; as, good humor; ill humor. "Examine how your humor is inclined, And which the ruling passion of your mind." "A prince of a pleasant humor." "I like not the humor of lying."
4.
pl. Changing and uncertain states of mind; caprices; freaks; vagaries; whims. "Is my friend all perfection, all virtue and discretion? Has he not humors to be endured?"
5.
That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations; a playful fancy; facetiousness. "For thy sake I admit That a Scot may have humor, I'd almost said wit." "A great deal of excellent humor was expended on the perplexities of mine host."
Aqueous humor, Crystalline humor or Crystalline lens, Vitreous humor. (Anat.) See Eye.
Out of humor, dissatisfied; displeased; in an unpleasant frame of mind.
Synonyms: Wit; satire; pleasantry; temper; disposition; mood; frame; whim; fancy; caprice. See Wit.



humour  n.  Same as humor. (Chiefly Brit.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Humour" Quotes from Famous Books



... I have ever known whose talk is like his books. The prodigality of humour, intuition and searching thought that he puts into his pages he also puts into what he says. And he is the only man I ever met who can sing his stories as well as tell them. Like the rest of the Irish writers of to-day, what he ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... waist. Up till now he had been profoundly unhappy and ashamed, but something in the unconquerable obstinacy of her attitude appealed to the devil that lived in him, a devil of untimely and disastrous humour. The right thing, he felt, was not to appear as angry as he was. He sat up on his pillow, and began to talk to ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... death she was like a watch that had lost its mainspring." "Surely," flashed Lady Constance Leslie, "more like a vessel which had lost her auxiliary screw." The main characteristic of both Lady Cork and Lady Constance Leslie's humour was its lightning speed. It is superfluous to add, with these quick-witted ladies it was never necessary to EXPLAIN anything, as it is to the majority of English people; they understood before you had finished ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... great, ugly book, and for the few days that I have left off reading it, I find myself much worse. If your mother would let you stay with me a little while, you would see that I know how to get rid of my ill-humour. If you knew how hard it was to be in good humour, when left so long alone, and when you hear me singing and talking like a madman, you would not call this a great ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... erudite volume "De Prestigiis Demonum," recounts the story which is celebrated in the following ballad. Something like it is to be found in the biography of every magician; for the household staff of a wizard was not complete without a famulus, who usually proved to be a fellow of considerable humour, but endowed with the meddling propensities of a monkey. Thus, Doctor Faustus of Wittenburg—not at all to be confounded with the illustrious printer—had a perfect jewel in the person of his attendant Wagner; and our English Friar Bacon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various


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