humour
UK /ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/ · US /ˈhjuːmɚ/ noun, verb
Forms humours humouring humoured humor
- noun (chiefly uncountable) The quality of being amusing, comical, funny. “She has a great sense of humour, and I always laugh a lot whenever we get together.”
- noun (uncountable) A mood, especially a bad mood; a temporary state of mind or disposition brought upon by an event; an abrupt illogical inclination or whim. “He was in a particularly vile humour that afternoon.”
- noun (archaic or historical) Any of the fluids in an animal body, especially the four "cardinal humours" of blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm that were believed to control the health and mood of the human body.
- noun (medicine) Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour.
- noun (obsolete) Moist vapour, moisture.
- verb (transitive) To pacify by indulging. “I know you don't believe my story, but humour me for a minute and imagine it to be true.”
Synonyms
amusingness comedy comicality wit witticism mood bodily fluid temper humor wittiness liquid body substance body fluid sense of humor sense of humour
Etymology
From Middle English humour, from Old French humor, humour, from Latin hūmor, correctly ūmor (“liquid”), from hūmeō, correctly ūmeō (“to be moist”). The h in these words, which was silent in late Classical Latin, is folk etymological, due to the erroneous association with the word humus (“soil”).
The shift in meaning "liquid" > "mood" is attributed to the classical system of physiology, where human behaviour is regulated by four bodily humours (fluids). The sense "mood" gave rise to the verb sense "to give in to someone's mood or whim" and, by narrowing of meaning, the sense "wit".
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “humour”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details