humor synonyms

humor

n.

  1. Comedy

    amusement, jesting, raillery, joking, merriment, buffoonery, tomfoolery, badinage, clowning, jocularity, jocoseness, farce, drollery, facetiousness, black humor, salt, whimsicality, comedy stuff*, laugh business*; see also entertainment 1, fun.

  2. An example of humor

    witticism, pleasantry, banter; see joke 1, 2.

  3. The ability to appreciate comedy

    good humor, sense of humor, wittiness, high spirits, merry disposition, joviality, jolliness, jocularity, jocundity, gaiety, joyfulness, playfulness, happy frame of mind, jauntiness; see also happiness 1.

  4. Mood

    disposition, frame of mind, temper; see mood 1. See syn. study at mood, wit.

out of humor

cross, disagreeable, grouchy; see irritable.

humor

v.

indulge, pamper, baby, play up to, gratify, please, pet, coddle, tickle, gladden, mollycoddle, spoil, oblige, comply with, appease, placate, soften, be playful with; see also comfort, entertain 1, satisfy 1.

Antonyms provoke, anger, enrage.

humor suggests compliance with the mood or whim of another they humored the dying man; indulge implies a yielding to the wishes or desires of oneself or another, as because of a weak will or an amiable nature; pamper implies overindulgence or excessive gratification; spoil emphasizes the harm done to the personality or character by overindulgence or excessive attention grandparents often spoil children; baby suggests the sort of pampering and devoted care lavished on infants and connotes a potential loss of self-reliance because he was sickly, his mother continued to baby him

Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus Copyright © 1999 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.