Question 1 · Quick check
humour
CEFRB1
/ˈhjuː.mə(ɹ)/
noun
Türkçe translations
Translating…
In plain English
- 01
noun
The quality of being funny or understanding what is funny.
- 02
noun
Extra detailA mood, especially a bad mood; a temporary state of mind or disposition brought upon by an event; an abrupt illogical inclination or whim.
Examples
"The Nightingale Samurai" is a samurai tale full of humanity and humour.
He has a great sense of humour.
At a glance
Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale
- Senses
- 5
- Parts of speech
- 1
- Citations
- 5
- Synonyms
- 5
Also pronounced
- /ˈjuːmɚ/
Deep Dive
noun
Extra meaningsAny 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.
The quality of being amusing, comical, funny.
Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour.
More examples
In contextIt was a story full of gentle humour.
He was in a particularly vile humour that afternoon.
She has a great sense of humour, and I always laugh a lot whenever we get together.
Related
Quick test
Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.
Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.
Nearby
Origin
noun
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".