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Laugh at   /læf æt/   Listen
Laugh at

verb
1.
Subject to laughter or ridicule.  Synonyms: blackguard, guy, jest at, make fun, poke fun, rib, ridicule, roast.  "The students poked fun at the inexperienced teacher" , "His former students roasted the professor at his 60th birthday"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Laugh at" Quotes from Famous Books



... compels all powers to make terms with it. Pilate thought himself obliged to make some concession; but still hesitating to shed blood, in order to satisfy men whom he hated, wished to turn the thing into a jest. Affecting to laugh at the pompous title they had given to Jesus, he caused him to be scourged.[1] Scourging was the general preliminary of crucifixion.[2] Perhaps Pilate wished it to be believed that this sentence had already been pronounced, hoping that the preliminary would suffice. Then took ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... will not turn aside from their holy purpose to promote a measure that basely, grossly insults one-half, and that the best half of the human race. Were the subject not too serious for mirth, such accusations, coming from such a source, would be simply ludicrous. As it is, many will laugh at such absurdity. The Fifteenth Amendment, at best, is but a trick, a device (as was the Fourteenth with its word male three times burned into a single period), of as corrupt and unprincipled a school of politicians as ever disgraced the name ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... months, Coupeau was able to get up. He did not go far, only from the bed to the window, and even then Gervaise had to support him. There he would sit down in the easy-chair the Lorilleuxs had brought, with his right leg stretched out on a stool. This joker, who used to laugh at the people who slipped down on frosty days, felt greatly put out by his accident. He had no philosophy. He had spent those two months in bed, in cursing, and in worrying the people about him. It was not an existence, really, to pass one's life on one's back, with a pin ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... in making the poor lame animal limp so many miles, and they got home after dark; but that was just as well, for nobody saw the new horse, or had a chance to laugh at ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... best girl in the world, Jaqueline," said Ricardo. "You may give me a kiss if you like; and I won't call you 'Jack,' or laugh at you for reading books, any more. There's ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... coming out in quite a new light, Bob, as a squire of dames. But I won't laugh at you, now; I want to hear the last news. I overhauled that craft, not so much to capture her, as to get the last news. There were reports, before I started, that the Moors were joining the Spaniards, and that their ports were closed to us; and what you ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... irresistibly comic, of course, was the difference between their performance and one's remembrance of regular performances of it—to say nothing of one's thoughts as to what Shakespeare would have said about it. How those children will laugh when they are grown up! They will have something to laugh at that will last them a lifetime. ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken

... broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... but that she would often be praying in church when her father and mother did not know it. Jean Waterin, when he was a boy, had seen Joan in the fields, "and when they were all playing together, she would go apart and pray to God, as he thought, and he and the others used to laugh at her. When she heard the church bell ring, she would kneel down in the fields." All those who had seen Joan told the same tale: she was always kind, simple, industrious, pious and yet merry and fond ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... now to think of going on today, so after all it don't matter much We can pull some more wood on board before night, and laugh at the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... and rested ten minutes. During one of those rests I pulled off my shoes to see what was hurting my feet. I found on each of my heels a large blister and several small ones. A non-commissioned officer saw the condition of my feet and ordered me into the ambulance. I was afraid the soldiers would laugh at me for falling out. First I hesitated, but very soon I had plenty of company ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman

... those who laugh at me and my companions, think this folly confined to a stagecoach. Every man in the journey of life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... do! There—just over there, between the rhododendrons—the tall fair man alone at that table. Really, Harvey, I think you ought to speak to the head-waiter, orsomething; though I suppose in one of these places they'd only laugh at you," ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... so afraid for you, Marcy. Afraid you would take to the make-believe folks. The play people. The theater. I used to fear for you! The Pullman car. The furnished room. That going to the hotel room, alone, nights after the show. You laugh at me sometimes for just throwing a veil over my face and coming home black-face. It's because I'm too tired, Marcy. Too lonesome for home. On the road I always used to think of all the families in the audience. The husbands and wives. Brides and grooms. Sweethearts. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... three had gone into our old place of rest, Raven went at once, as in the old days, to the little square window that was in the high-pitched gable, and looked out over the town and sea. We used to laugh at him for this, for he was never happy until he had seen, as we said, if ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... are they?" he said again, saluting in the direction of the exploded shell. "But nothing! But something to snap one's fingers at! To laugh at! To chortle over! Something to avoid, though, my Henri and my Jules! Not that a man is so careful of his body in these days. Though he is anxious to retain his life, yet not for himself only, not that he shall live ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... boy," he said, "very young indeed. Perhaps that is my fault for not having let you see more of the world. You have got some very queer ideas into your head. A little too much novel reading lately, eh? I might treat you differently. I might laugh at you and send you out of the room. I won't. I'll tell you what you ask. I'll explain what you find so mysterious. The person to whom I have been ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... something was going on between her and Georgie, for she had been heard by one Miss Antrobus to ask for Georgie's number at the telephone in the Ambermere Arms. Etiquette forbade her actually to listen to what passed, but she could not help hearing Olga laugh at something (presumably) that Georgie said. He himself took no part in the green-parliament that morning, but had been seen to dash into the fruiterer's and out again, before he went in a great hurry to The Hurst, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... myself once by a lady in reference to this same "Coral Island." "There is one thing, Mr. Ballantyne," she said, "which I really find it hard to believe. You make one of your three boys dive into a clear pool, go to the bottom, and then, turning on his back, look up and wink and laugh at the other two." ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... insignificance of the person by whom it is occasioned. Were a government so constructed, that it could not go on unless a goose or a gander were present in the senate, the difficulties would be just as great and as real, on the flight or sickness of the goose, or the gander, as if it were called a King. We laugh at individuals for the silly difficulties they make to themselves, without perceiving that the greatest of all ridiculous things are ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... itself seriously about what is evil in the conduct of others, because it takes no regular care of its own, with reference to pleasing God; it will not do anything low or wicked, but it will sometimes laugh at those who do; and it will by no means take pains to encourage, nay, it will sometimes thwart and oppose any thing that breathes a higher spirit, and asserts a more manly and ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... prairie when the stars are coming out over Cedar Range. Then it seems bigger and more solemn than the sea. I can see it now, wide and grey and shadowy, and so still that you feel afraid to hear yourself breathing, with the last smoky flush burning on its northern rim. Now, you may laugh at me, for you couldn't understand. When you have been born there, you always love ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... askance at me, the village gossiped, even the Vicar shook a kindly head. What cared I? By Heaven, why was one man a nobleman and rich, while another had no money in his purse and but one change to his back? Was not love all in all, and why did Cydaria laugh at a truth so manifest? There she was under the beech tree, with her sweet face screwed up to a burlesque of grief, her little hand lying on her hard heart as though it beat for me, and her eyes the playground of a thousand quick expressions. I strode up to her, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... feller? you raskil! you white slabe! Come 'long home!" cried Peter the Great, seizing Foster by the collar and dragging him forcibly away, at the same time administering several kicks so violent that his entire frame seemed to be dislocated, while the janissaries burst into a laugh at the ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... shoves another off his seat and takes possession of it—a feat so humorous that the whole crowd is convulsed. A bad orange, pitched across the deck, strikes an elderly gentleman on the bald pate—well, I had to laugh at that myself. By-and-by, a stout, florid young gentleman turns pale and groans; three or four officious friends, with twinkling eyes, seize him by the arms, and drag him over to the lee-scuppers, where he manifests still more decided symptoms of sea-sickness. His friends hold ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... began reflecting where I could make best use of it in dividing the combatants, and should no doubt have laid on if I only could have distinguished friend from foe; but both parties, being black, were so alike, that I hesitated until they stopped to laugh at my excited state, and assured me that it was only the enactment of a common custom in the country when two strange caravan-leaders meet, and each doubts who should take the supremacy in choice of side. In two minutes more the antagonists broke into broad laughter, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... used to Doc and me being around, but they never got what you'd call intimate. Joey would laugh at some of the droll things Doc said, but his eyes always went back to the palmetto flats and the highway, looking for Charlie. And he never let ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee

... underneath this smooth surface of every-day boarding-house life, which would show themselves some fine morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I have been watchful, as I said I should be, but have little to tell as yet. You may laugh at me, and very likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble myself about what is going on in a middling-class household like ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible fact to begin with,—a beautiful young girl, with the blood and the nerve-fibre ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... into a fit of laughter. The Englishman got up and shook hands with the Swede: si non e vero, said he, e ben trovato.[476] But, however I may laugh at it here, I would not advise you to tell this story on the other side of the water. So here's a bumper to Old England for ever, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... matter to keep his eyes off her, and somewhat he wearied her with kisses and caresses; but a gay and sportive lad he was; and when she rebuked him for his overmuch fondness, as now and again she did, he would laugh at himself along with her; and in sooth she deemed him heart-whole, and of all truth to Viridis, and oft he would talk of her to Birdalone, and praise her darling beauty to her, and tell of his longing for his love aloof. ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... He barked a laugh at her and went across the thick carpet to sit in his swivel chair. It was a beauty of dark green morocco that matched his Bank of England chairs and leather sofa that was against one of the walls. "What's your favorite prophecy, young woman?" he ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp

... turn everything I say to you into ridicule!" he cried. "You know I love you with all my heart and soul. Again and again I have asked you to be my wife—and you laugh at me as if it was a joke. I haven't deserved to be treated in that cruel way. It ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... return to the charge till Grim got fearfully vexed with him. Bill himself never teased old Grim or anybody else. It was not his nature. He could laugh with them as much as they might please, but he never could laugh at them, or jeer them. Old Grim really liked Bill, though he took an odd way of showing it sometimes. Bill, indeed, soon became a favourite on board, just because he was so good-natured and happy, and was ready ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... There was a laugh at La Corne's allusion to the Marquise de Pompadour, whose original name of Jeanne Poisson, gave rise to infinite jests and sarcasms among the people of low ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... to laugh at me," said poor Amabel, as D'Arcy took her into the dining-room, "I gave ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... laughed. A laugh at such a time, and a laugh so full of simplicity and amusement brought the other ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... things which might have hurt her, but no reply came. He thought of writing to Roselawn, fancying she might have gone there, but he was certain that before the letter could reach her she would have come again, and they would only laugh at the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... doubtfully, rather inclined to think he was laughing at her, if any one could laugh at Miss Rylance. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... peering at him over her spectacles, "I don't see anything to laugh at,"—and she did not, but then she was in ignorance ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun

... outside he felt two arms go tenderly round his neck; and a soft shape strain itself to his heart. "I know you have been laughing about me. But you may. I'm yours now, even to laugh at, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... I thinke that that same subtil gin The which the Lemnian god framde craftilie, 370 Mars sleeping with his wife to compasse in, That all the gods with common mockerie Might laugh at them, and scorne their shamefull sin, Was like to this. This same he did applie For to entrap the careles Clarion, 375 That ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... just as well as if I'd been there—he kept saying: 'One must act—one must act!' and sitting in his chair and doing nothing. Oh, I'm not disrespectful: they were like that in his generation! Besides—it's better to laugh at things, isn't it?" And suddenly his face ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... a sigh of relief. They were safely past and could laugh at any attempted pursuit in the clumsy ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... jimble-jumbled; It must be hundreds and hundreds of miles along which we have staggered and stumbled. I thought you were a cool card. Mister BALFOUR, and did know your way about. Sir, But what I should like to know at present is, when we are like to get out, Sir. How LABBY will laugh at the Labyrinth-maker, who gets lost in his own Great Maze, Sir! Don't say, Sir, pray, that you've lost your way,—you, whom people so cosset and praise Sir. You won't be hurried, and you can't be flurried, and you're always as cool as a cucumber. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... slowly, the dead man seemed to mock him, to laugh at him derisively. "Hereafter—yes, that's a big word. Yes, go and talk ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... thinks her Vertue is a Plague of Life, And will to cure it, yield as Whore or Wife. Find all the Ills that have before been said, And lose for endless Plauges her Maiden-head, Who will not bear what they infer a Pain, And laugh at all the ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various

... wife used to laugh at me for digging up the seed to see if it had sprouted, so impatient was I to see the ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... a right to play with everything that exists; and humor has a right to laugh at everything that exists. Everything in life is sacred and everything ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... a few sentences of malice, meanness, falsehood, perjury, treachery, and cant,' said Slurk, handing the paper to Bob, 'you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... don't think so, Joyce. Of course it's not pretty, but—doesn't it seem to stand for something big and—well, indomitable? Think of all the miles of tunnels and stopes, of all the work that has gone into making them." She stopped to laugh at her own enthusiasm before she added: "Goldbanks stands to me for the hope in the human heart that rises in spite of everything. It is ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... at eight, Mr. Brough went through the same ceremony, and had his family to prayers; but though this man was a hypocrite, as I found afterwards, I'm not going to laugh at the family prayers, or say he was a hypocrite because he had them. There are many bad and good men who don't go through the ceremony at all; but I am sure the good men would be the better for it, and am not called upon to settle the question with respect to the bad ones; and therefore I have ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... one of the men, wringing the water out of his wet clothes as he walked forward, "we got a good laugh at Peter Grim, if we got ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... was gravely seating herself to tell her neighbours a sad and melancholy story, Puck would slip her three-legged stool from under her, and down toppled the poor old woman, and then the old gossips would hold their sides and laugh at her, and swear they never wasted a ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... nose. He was a man about forty, tall, big-boned, and muscular, though not fat; and besides being a gentlemanly man, was a good-natured, quiet creature, and a clever enough fellow besides, but he preferred to laugh at and enjoy the jokes and witticisms of others rather than to perpetrate any himself. Dr Hopley was intensely fond of travelling, and being possessed of a small independence, he indulged his passion to the utmost. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... fellows whom Britain trusted with the important task of watching him and sizing him up counted him as a boor as well as a Boer—a mere country clod. But now, from the rocky hills, these clods, these sons of semi-white savages, laugh at us derisively, and answer our jeers with rifles that know how to speak in a language that even the bravest of our troops have ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... spoken to me. If a gentleman conversing with me over there were to speak to me like that I shouldn't know what to make of it. We take everything more naturally over there, and, after all, we're a great deal more simple. I admit that; I'm very simple myself. Of course if you choose to laugh at me for it you're very welcome; but I think on the whole I would rather be myself than you. I'm quite content to be myself; I don't want to change. There are plenty of people that appreciate me just as I am. It's true they're nice fresh free-born Americans!" ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... This action of Columbus's deserves close study. He had come to a turning-point in his life. He had been asking, asking, asking, for six years; he had been put off and refused over and over again; people were beginning to laugh at him for a madman; and now, when a combination of lucky chances had brought him to the very door of success, he stood outside the threshold bargaining for a preposterous price before he would come in. It seemed like the densest stupidity. What is the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... Even Mr. Burnand has not been able to make Mokanna ridiculous, nor have the recent accounts of the actual waste of desert and felt huts banished at least the poetical beauty of "Merou's bright palaces and groves." There are those who laugh at the bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream: I do not. "Paradise and the Peri" is perhaps the prettiest purely sentimental poem that English or any other language can show. "The Fire Worshippers" are rather long, but there is a famous fight—more than one indeed—in ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... Connect European Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Siberia, India and China with bonds that make effective cooperation possible and these countries—containing nearly two-thirds of the population of the world, and possessed of the resources necessary to maintain a modern civilization—could laugh at outside interference. ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... laugh at in this," he says, slappin' his hands together. "I ain't a jealous man, but no movie hero is gonna be ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... answered Essex, with a melancholy smile. "Yet the queen's favor, of which this ring was the symbol, has proved my ruin. When death is nigh, men converse with dreams and shadows. I have been gazing into the diamond, and fancying—but you will laugh at me—that I might catch a glimpse of the evil spirit there. Do you observe this red glow,—dusky, too, amid all the brightness? It is the token of his presence; and even now, methinks, it grows redder and duskier, like ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... situation enough to follow willingly, leaving the remainder of the attendance to Hans, who was fully equal to it. The door was secured by a long knife in the post, but Anne could hear plainly the rude laugh at her entrenchment within her fortress and much of the banter of Peregrine for having proceeded no further. It was impossible to shut out all the voices, and very alarming they were, as well as sometimes so coarse that they made ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said his mother; "how could I but laugh at the notion of that great fat Ruby going side by side with ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... Gods," she interrupted him; "they say the Gods laugh at the perjury of lovers! But oh! remember, Paullus, that if you were indeed untrue to ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... myself: 'Andrey Vassilievitch, he is your best friend'—but I am jealous. Yes, Ivan Andreievitch, I am jealous of him. I think that perhaps he will die before me and that then—somewhere—together—they will laugh at me. And he has such memories of her! At the last she cried his name! He is so much a grander man than I! Fine in every way! Did I say that she would laugh? No, no ... that never. But she will say: 'Poor Andrey ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... Perdita, in The Winter's Tale, thus describes them in her ever-quoted list: "Daffodils that come before the swallow dares and take the winds of March with beauty." Most cheerful and sunny of all our spring flowers, they have never lost their old-time popularity, and they still laugh at our ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... and walked to the stern, thinking the skipper was a very uncivil fellow to laugh at his ignorance, and sat down again on the bale, secretly ill at ease on account of these sailors' words. What kind of a place could ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... with a hoarse laugh at the wit of his superior; "the very thing, by Jove! give him an ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... should be no compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood. People would laugh at the converted celibate—was it that he feared? Had he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his infatuation ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... hatred, or cringing obsequiousness—but never before had he or any of his friends been laughed at. Furthermore, he, the dreaded Claggett Chew, and his gaudy friend Osterbridge Hawsey, were held as being of so little account that a boy dared to laugh at them! ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... turn to laugh at him, and yell ken that I took full advantage o't! Mac ran fast, and he caught one of the youngsters who had kicked the ball at him and cuffed his ear. That came near to makin' trouble, too, for the boy's father came round ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless, I think we can detect Good—Good of sheer unadulterated sensation. Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and hot! You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... objected Ned mournfully. "Ah've been turned all ends up, wi' this 'ere 'appening. Tod, 'e'll turn an' laugh at me." ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... daughter's lightness of heart had occasionally betrayed her. She entreated her not to show an exclusive preference for the more youthful portion of her society, to the neglect of those who were older, and commonly of higher consideration; never to laugh at people or turn them into ridicule—no habit could be more injurious to herself, and indulgence in it would give reason to doubt her good-nature; it might gain her the applause of a few young people, but it would alienate a much greater number, and those ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... score of voices greeted me; some welcoming, some chaffing. "Glad to see you again, old fellow!" "What news from Sark?" "Been in quod for a week?" "His hair is not cut short!" "No; he has tarried in Sark till his beard be grown!" There was a circling laugh at this last jest at my appearance, which had been uttered by a good-tempered, jovial clergyman, who was passing by on his way to the town church. I did my best to laugh and banter in return, but it was like a bear ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... he said. "You know how solemn he is. It's positively painful to hear him try to laugh at a joke. I'm sure he would be delighted with this idea. And if I were you I'd see him ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey

... not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most, as an uncertain obscurity which mankind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... if thou dost not, thou art sure to lose the love and favor of God and Christ, the benefits of heaven and glory, and be mocked of God for thy folly. "I will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh." If thou wouldst not be hated and mocked then, take heed thou by thy folly dost not procure the displeasure and mockings of the great God; for his mocks and hatred will be terrible, because they ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan

... get her to her post. She dared not keep Sutton waiting, and fear of the time-clock had become a habit with her. As she caught the gleaming rivets and thrust them into their sconces, she wondered if all this toil were merely a waste of effort to give the sarcastic gods another laugh at ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as He was immeasurable. It may be a forgery. They laugh at me and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood may be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by his parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... individuality, all his own. He sprang at Ted and barked his delight. It made Ted feel good to have the dog remember him. It was queer to see how the dog tried to pay attention to both Red and Ted, and it made the men laugh at his double devotion. ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood

... of the present time be asked to treat sacred subjects as was attempted at Varallo, with the condition that they must keep closely to the costume of to-day, and they would probably one and all of them decline the task. We know very well that, laugh at it as we may, our costume will three hundred years hence be as interesting as that of any other age, but that is not to the point: it has got to be effective now, whereas our familiarity with ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... in the avoidance of certain natural and necessary words. For myself I unfeignedly admire the delicacy which leads to a certain parsimony in the use of words like "perspiration," "cleaning one's self," and so on. And, however much we may laugh at the class that insists upon the name of "help" instead of "servant," we cannot but respect the class which yields to the demand and looks with horror on ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... I never was so serious in my life. Do you think that I mean nothing because I laugh at myself? You know I don't ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... unfortunate child, but did not evince the least compassion; they laughed, and went on. In any other place, they would have raised a little subscription, or at least pitied and consoled him, but certainly would not have seen anything to laugh at. The circumstance is of itself a mere trifle, but it is exactly by such trifles that we are often enabled to form a true estimate ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... Laughing to scorn and derision agree as to the end but differ in mode, because derision is done with the "mouth," i.e. by words and laughter, while laughing to scorn is done by wrinkling the nose, as a gloss says on Ps. 2:4, "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them": and such a distinction does not differentiate the species. Yet they both differ from reviling, as being shamed differs from being dishonored: for to be ashamed is "to fear dishonor," as Damascene states (De Fide ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... that one's soul can be put aside but not that it should be handled. That there is some pride in this, I confess, but I do not intend either to boast or to lower myself. Above all things I hate those women who laugh at love and I permit them to reciprocate the sentiment; there will never be ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... could send her stripped to the torment,—and by my father's head I'll break her for it! When I approached her with soft words, these many weeks ago, she laughed,—mind you that!—and it is dangerous to laugh at Hito. But she will not laugh when I am through with her! Also she said that she would prefer the rack. A pity that in this world people cannot always have what they prefer. More than ever I desire her; I would break her, see her cringe and follow like a beaten ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... don't need any quinine, or anything else in the shape of medicine to brace me up. There's nothing the matter with me, bodily; but, to be perfectly candid, I do feel a little bit off my mental balance, as it were, to-night. The fact is—I know you'll laugh at me, sir, but I can't help that, and it don't matter, but I've got the feeling strong upon me that something's going to happen to me to-night. For three nights running—that is to say, last night, and the night before, and the night before that again—I've ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... to support any important measure proposed by him. If he and I now were to find ourselves together under the Free Soil flag, I am sure that, with his accustomed good nature, he would laugh. If nobody were present, we should both laugh at the strange occurrences and stranger jumbles of political life that should have brought us to sit down cosily and snugly, side by side, on the same platform. That the leader of the Free Spoil party should so suddenly have become ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... right people, and to help them I want to promote culture, like those Renaissance women you're always talking about. I want to do it for Apex City; do you understand? And for father and mother too. I want all those titles carved on my tombstone. They're facts, anyhow! Don't laugh at me...." She broke off with one of her clumsy smiles, and moved away from him to the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... eyes—for she was an admirable listener if her answers sometimes lacked point—drawing from him secret thoughts and hopes and aspirations he had never dared to tell before. If she did not understand him she did not laugh at him, which was enough for David with the sleepy whisperings of the prairie around him, and new, strange matter stirring in his heart and ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... doubled on us, somewhere, and is hidden where he can watch us, and laugh at us slyly," suggested Tom, as the three high school boys turned to walk ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... is your intention, I wish to God she may play ill." "Why so?" said the caliph. "Because," replied the grand vizier, "the longer we live in this world, the more reason we shall have to comfort ourselves with the hopes of dying in good sociable company." The caliph, who loved a repartee, began to laugh at this; and putting his ear to the opening of the door, listened to hear the fair ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... been in the habit of seeing little hares and foxes, you would not, therefore, believe that there are such beasts as lions and panthers; and if any one should describe an elephant to you, you would think that he designed to laugh at you. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... familiarity tell her that she was a little Yankee and a fierce republican, and "chaff" her about the stars and stripes; and then, as he pictured the scene to himself in his imagination, she would lean upon him and would give him back his chaff, and would call him an aristocrat and would laugh at his titles. As he thought of all this he would be proud with the feeling that such privileges would be his own. And now this wretched man had called her a ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... of their species. The unconcealed hostility with which they regard us is a marvellous contrast to the natural or purchasable civility or servility which prevails on British steamers. It has its comic side too, and we are content to laugh at it, and at all the other oddities ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... nuisance instead of a pleasure. Here everyone belonged apparently to the better class; the women and children were richly and fashionably dressed, the officers looked smart in their multi-coloured uniforms, and, no matter how one might laugh at the students, there was an atmosphere of good-breeding and refinement everywhere which Shirley was not accustomed to see in public places at home. A sprinkling of workmen and people of the poorer class were to be seen here and there, but ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... it as you do," said Helga, "and I am afraid you will laugh at me. The name with us is spelt 'Jon,' pronounced 'Yon.' We have ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... boys stopped laughing. There was nothing laughable about it now. It seemed too beautiful to laugh at, and when the great Chief went over, and rubbed his nose against Sutoto's every one knew that the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... but laugh at the mischief he had caused. That may be the way at Oxford; but we used to flatter ourselves at Cambridge ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... tones of his voice, to say nothing of his matter and gesture, were insinuated into the feelings of his hearers, in a manner that baffled all description. It seemed to operate by mere sympathy, and by his tones alone it seemed to me that he could make you cry or laugh at pleasure. Yet his gesture came powerfully in aid, and, if necessary, would approach almost to the ridiculous.... I will try to give some account of his tragic and comic effect in two instances that came before me. About the year 1792, one Holland killed a young man ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... "Do not laugh at me," she writes. "The road to Paris is paved with good intentions. I really could not help it. Delphine put her great arm round my would-be sequestered and meditative self and carried it off bodily, and here it is in the midst of lunches, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... preached who was remarkable for his piety, desirous of withdrawing the king's attention from truths he did not wish to have his majesty reminded of, would in the sermon-time entertain the king with a merry tale, which the king would laugh at, and tell those near him, that he could not hear the preacher for the old—bishop; prefixing an epithet explicit of the character of these merry tales. Kennet has preserved for us the "rank relation," as he calls it; not, he adds, but "we have had divers hammerings and conflicts within ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and more melancholy and morbid since the abduction of ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... the spirit east of the sun and west of the moon. They cannot be seen in print without a thrill. The names in the atlas which do that for me are a motley lot, and you, who see no magic in them, but have your own lunacy in another phase, would laugh at mine. Celebes, Acapulco, Para, Port Royal, Cartagena, the Marquesas, Panama, the Mackenzie River, Tripoli of Barbary. They are some of mine. Rome should be there, I know, and Athens, and Byzantium. But they are not, and that is all I can ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... be the chief object of his desire."—Id. and Merchant cor. "The supreme Author of our being has so formed the human soul, that nothing but himself can be its last, adequate, and proper happiness."—Addison and Blair cor. "The inhabitants of China laugh at the plantations of our Europeans: 'Because,' say they, 'any one may place trees in equal rows and uniform figures.'"—Iid. "The divine laws are not to be reversed by those of men."—L. Murray cor. "In both of these examples, the relative which and the verb was are ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... lawyer) in large practice in Edinburgh. He had never been led from the right way; and when the less virtuously inclined among the companions of his early life in Edinburgh found that they could not corrupt him, they ceased after a little while to laugh at him, and learned to honor him and to confide in him, "which is certainly," says he who makes the record on the authority of Mrs. Scott herself, "a great inducement to young men in the outset of life ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... repeated a good story with which he had been enlivening the Major, and I did what I could to keep up the talk. Derrick meanwhile put away the chessmen, and lighted the Major's candle. He even managed to force up a laugh at Lawrence's story, and, as he helped his father out of the room, I think I was the only one who noticed the look of tired endurance ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... me by his kitchen fire. It was not without real difficulty, we could bring the simple people who had crowded in for safety from their terror: the three travellers, in particular, as the first impression was still strong within them, they could not credit what they saw. We finished by a hearty laugh at their expence, and by drinking to the man whose head was like a flame of fire, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... He'll do nothing all day long but sit on his arse, as my mother did when she made pouts: And then a' looks a' this fashion, and thus and thus again; and then, what do ye? By my troth, I stand even thus at him, and laugh at his simplismity. Hath the best manners in the world to bid a man fall to his meat, And then I say: I thank you forsooth, master, and I could tell what to eat. We two, look you—that's I and he—can lie a-bed a whole night and a day, And we eat, and we had it: it vattens a man; look ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... I to myself, 'there is sure to be one on algebra. To ask the owner for the loan of it does not appeal to me. My amiable colleague would receive me superciliously and laugh at my ambitious aims. I am sure he would refuse ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... some cheap bouge, and his wild eyes gleam at me through the tangle of his hair. But I do not think he ever sees me. He mumbles to himself, and moves like a man in a dream. His pockets are full of filthy paper on which he writes from time to time. The students laugh at him and make him tipsy; the street boys pelt him with ordure; the better cafes turn him from their doors. But who knows? At least, this ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... other, with force that would fracture any skulls except African ones. Once, twice, three times—at the third encounter, Plato the sage bites the dust before the hero of Macedon. Confound the fellows! My companions are laughing fit to split themselves, but I see nothing to laugh at. I shall have them in hospital for the next ten days. Tully, however, has picked up the pan and the embers, and is rushing towards a flag-staff near the shore, from which the Louisianian flag is waving. I see now what they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... for ourselves. Should life have rendered us excitable, we must train ourselves to conquering this trait; yet if life has engendered in us equanimity, we should so rouse ourselves by our own efforts that the soul may be capable of responding to the impressions it receives. The man who cannot laugh at anything, has just as little control over his laughter as one who is perpetually giving ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... consequence. A special delegate of PUNCHINELLO has been already admitted to a seat in the OEcumenical Council. Pope Pius remarked kindly that he was the only person there who honestly told what he came for. His Holiness enjoyed, also, a hearty laugh at his first interview; the subject being the proper title and costume of our delegate. It was concluded, as he was somewhat dark in complexion, to dub him Bishop of 'Ngami; which, you know, is one of those ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various



Words linked to "Laugh at" :   mock, bemock, expose, satirize, stultify, lampoon, debunk, tease, satirise



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