American Dictionary of the English Language

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Laugh


LAUGH, verb intransitive l'aff. [Heb.]

1. To make the noise and exhibit the features which are characteristic of mirth in the human species. Violent laughter is accompanied with a shaking of the sides, and all laughter expels breath from the lungs.

2. In poetry, to be gay; to appear gay, cheerful, pleasant, lively or brilliant.

Then laughs the childish year with flow'rets crown'd.

And o'er the foaming bowl, the laughing wine.

To laugh at, to ridicule; to treat with some degree of contempt.

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.

To laugh to scorn, to deride; to treat with mockery, contempt and scorn. Nehemiah 2:19.

LAUGH, noun l'aff. An expression of mirth peculiar to the human species.

But feigns a laugh to see me search around, and by that laugh the willing fair is found.