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Humourous   Listen
adjective
humourous  adj.  Same as humorous; causing amusement or laughter. (Narrower terms: bantering, facetious, tongue-in-cheek, witty; boisterous, knockabout, slapstick; buffoonish, clownish, zany; comic, comical, funny, laughable, risible; droll, waggish; dry, ironic, ironical, pawky, wry; farcical, ludicrous, ridiculous; Gilbertian; hilarious, uproarious; jesting, jocose, jocular, jocund, joking; merry, mirthful; seriocomic, seriocomical; tragicomic, tragicomical; killing, sidesplitting) Also See: pleasing.
Synonyms: humorous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Humourous" Quotes from Famous Books



... egotism of a man, who, loving other men as himself, gains the habit, and the privilege of talking about himself as familiarly as about other men. Fond of the curious, and a hunter of oddities and strangenesses, while he conceived himself, with quaint and humourous gravity a useful inquirer into physical truth and fundamental science,—he loved to contemplate and discuss his own thoughts and feelings, because he found by comparison with other men's, that they too were curiosities, and ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... skins, under a roof of palm leaves; here a fire was always kept, without which the skins would have spoiled in that damp climate. Chonggat had a fine physique, was always pleasant and willing and was possessed of more than ordinary intelligence withal. Also keenly humourous, he enjoyed my initial mistakes in Malay, though maintaining a proper respect for the leader ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... politeness, though she seldom understood what I said. When I finished speaking she answered what I had said indirectly, like one whose mind was not quite capable of following any conversation except the most trite. She laughed if she thought I had said anything humourous, and sometimes looked a little embarrassed; she only seemed to be at her ease when speaking of her mother. If, for instance, we were speaking of books, she would break in with her mother's opinions, thinking it wonderful that her mother had read—shall we say, "The Three ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... rank. Here, quite clearly, was no buccaneer. He was closely followed by one who in every particular, save that of age, was his physical opposite, corpulent in a brawny, vigorous way, with a full, round, weather-beaten face whose mouth was humourous and whose eyes were blue and twinkling. He was well dressed without fripperies, and bore with him an ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... people into fits of laughter at a dinner-table is simply execrable taste. I cannot see the sense of people shrieking with laughter at dinner. I have, I suppose, a better sense of humour than most people. But to my mind a humourous story should be told quietly and slowly in a way to bring out the point of the humour and to make it quite clear by preparing for it with proper explanations. But with people like that I find I no sooner get well started with ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock

... so humourous since his daughter was forsaken: hark, hark, there, there, so, so, codes, codes. What ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... was a man of his own age, but shorter and darker, with a hawk-like face softened by black eyes with a faintly humourous twinkle lurking in the corner of each. He seemed distinctly good-natured, but competition stirred Prescott and he offered sixty dollars. The other man hesitated, and the auctioneer, who seemed to know him, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... their quaint German. Some of them are as humourous as the epitaphs in New England graveyards. I remember one which ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... his knees and his head propped on his hand. We are allowed to follow his reflections, those of a philosopher,—but not one standing apart and watching a little scornfully the vagaries of men; a very human being, taking part in them, without losing a humourous sense of their character. "Illusion! Illusion! Everywhere illusion! Whichever way I bend my inquiry, searching the chronicles of the city and those of the world, to discover the reason why people, in vain and frantic rage, torment and oppress themselves and ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... a Month Wit at several Weapons Woman Hater Humourous Lieutenant Love bleeding Spanish Curate Chances Custom of the Country Coxcomb Bonduca Bloody Brothers Maid's Tragedy Double Marriage Island Princess Loyal Subject Love's Cure Prophetess Pilgrim Maid in ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall

... of it again, probably, but for Harriet herself, for now that the magic string had been touched, her heart overflowed to its echoes, and my waking hours were filled with anecdotes touching, brutal or humourous, of her years of joy and labour. Her cottage rent had cost her forty dollars, her clothes nothing, her food had come largely from the grateful people. Over and over again she returned to her ridiculously pitiful calculations. She could live for one hundred dollars a year. She could ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... may have been ridiculous. Catherine evidently found me so, for, after gauging me with that wry but humourous look which I knew so well of old, for which I had been waiting this afternoon, she went off into the decorous little fit of laughter in ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... hands in his sides, with his usual humourous positiveness. "Why, then tell her she is a very saucy lady, for her last letter to you, and her lord and master is not to be trusted; and it is my absolute will and pleasure that you ask me no more ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... "They are always humourous or pathetic," remarked Alice. "Some of them remind me of a person trying to laugh with a heart full of sorrow, and their ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... or the untrussing the humourous poet, a comical satire, presented publickly by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, and privately by the children of Paul's, printed in 4to, 1602, and dedicated to the world. This play was writ on the occasion of Ben Johnson's Poetaster, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... humourous scandal of an occasion when he found Beethoven flirting desperately with a fair unknown; Ries sat down at the piano and improvised incidental music to Beethoven's directions— "amoroso," ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... who had paused before their table, as one might look into the face of unexpected death. He remained perfectly still, but the slight colour seemed slowly to be drawn from his cheeks. Yet the newcomer himself seemed in no way terrifying. He was tall and largely built, clean-shaven, and with the humourous mouth of an Irishman or an American. Neither was there ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the owner of the factory comes at lunch time with several friends and talks to us with an amazing camaraderie. He is kindly, humourous and tactful. One or two missionaries speak after him, but their conversation is too abstract for us. We want something dramatic, imaginative, to hold our attention, or something wholly natural. Tell us about the bees, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... and she would sometimes get a message something like this: "I can't keep my engagement to see Louis to-day, for I have a cold, but as soon as I am over it I will let you know." Mr. Stevenson himself had a humourous way of referring to persons with colds as "pizon sarpints," and strangers may have wondered to hear him say: "I'm not seeing my friend So-and-so just now, because he's a pizon sarpint." Once at Saranac, in ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... her confidence returned. A man sat at a desk, an open ledger before him. He was talking to several tramps who stood in various uneasy attitudes in front of the desk. His face was tired, but his eyes had a humourous twinkle. He did not glance ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you. I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humourous vein. As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in publick, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... peace is to me a warre: O Lymoges, O Austria, thou dost shame That bloudy spoyle: thou slaue, thou wretch, y coward, Thou little valiant, great in villanie, Thou euer strong vpon the stronger side; Thou Fortunes Champion, that do'st neuer fight But when her humourous Ladiship is by To teach thee safety: thou art periur'd too, And sooth'st vp greatnesse. What a foole art thou, A ramping foole, to brag, and stamp, and sweare, Vpon my partie: thou cold blooded slaue, Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side? Beene sworne my Souldier, bidding me depend Vpon thy ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... would, sooner or later, do something startling with the bat. The Biffenite captain, Dick Worcester, did not altogether relish their proficiency. "It's just my luck to have my eleven filled up with niggers," he observed to Acton in half-humourous disgust; but Biffenites pinned their faith on Worcester, the dervishes, and Acton, and, to the huge delight of Grim, Rogers, Wilson, Thurston, and other enthusiastic junior Biffenites, the resurrected house survived ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... waiting for a crown of literary glory and money. In the next envelope a man using the note-paper of a Boston journal begged to know if the accompanying article would be acceptable; if not it was to be kindly returned in the enclosed stamped envelope. It was a humourous essay on trolley cars. Adventuring through the odd scraps that were come to the great mill, Baker paused occasionally to relight ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... Theatre, London, and to Charles Reade, the collaborator, with Boucicault, in so many plays. Then the company heard it, after which Jefferson proceeded to study it, literally living and breathing the part. Many are the humourous records of the play as preserved in the Jefferson "Autobiography" and in the three books on Jefferson by Winter Frances Wilson and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke

... of the most humourous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the Spectator tells us, particularly pleased his friend ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to convey the impression of the manner, winning, half humourous, half dry, supremely careless and confident, in which all this was said on the minister's part. It was something almost impossible at the moment to withstand, and it fidgetted Mrs. Starling to be under the power of it. Her grudge against the minister was even increased ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... interviews (much abridged) because they illustrate in a rather humourous way a state of mind which unhappily has long existed and exists to some degree to this day in England—an impatience of responsibility for anything concerning interests lying beyond the shores of our own Island, a certain superciliousness, and a habit of expressing and adhering ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... gay coloured ribbons tied in large knots and bows, and their hats are smartened in the same way. They are usually accompanied by an old woman, or a boy dressed up to represent one; she is gaily bedizened, and called the Bessy. Sometimes the sport is assisted by a humourous countryman to represent a fool. He is covered with ribbons, and attired in skins, with a depending tail, and carries a box to collect money from the spectators. They are attended by music and Morris Dancers, when they can be got; but it is always a sportive dance with a few ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... Chief Little Pine then rose. He addressed himself specially to the women, and told them a great work had been done for their children, and they must make up their minds now to give them up. In a humourous tone, be said, all the weaned children must be sent to the Institution at once, and the infants be kept until they were old enough. Their Missionary, he added, seemed to think it would be a heavy burden on him, and ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... and is, the most thoroughly representative British humourous journal, and since its birth in the forties has been domiciled in Bouverie Street, just off the main ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed all over him from head to foot—there is the portrait of the man who held in his hands (if Nugent was to be trusted) the restoration ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... another of the kind, which followed it five years later, are both preserved in the Royal Berlin Library. In them are a series of clavier pieces, by Bach, Gerhard, and others; a number of hymns and sacred songs; one of several humourous song's, describing the reflections of a smoker; and still others, apparently addressed to his wife, and giving fresh proofs of his devotion to her. Her portrait was painted by Cristofori, but disappeared after being in the possession of ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... in getting up another party——! [As he reaches the door on the left, he encounters CARLTON SMYTHE, who is entering at that moment, and puts on his humourous manner.] Hul-lo! Here we are again! All ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... inform my reader why I have pourtrayed the Baron in many particulars different from the German author, and carefully prepared the audience for the grand effect of the last scene in the fourth act, by totally changing his conduct towards his son as a robber—why I gave sentences of a humourous kind to the parts of the two Cottagers—why I was compelled, on many occasions, to compress the matter of a speech of three or four pages into one of three or four lines—and why, in no one instance, ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... [She laughs] You are mine, you are mine! This forehead is mine, these eyes are mine, this silky hair is mine. All your being is mine. You are so clever, so wise, the first of all living writers; you are the only hope of your country. You are so fresh, so simple, so deeply humourous. You can bring out every feature of a man or of a landscape in a single line, and your characters live and breathe. Do you think that these words are but the incense of flattery? Do you think I am not speaking the truth? Come, look into my eyes; look deep; do you find lies there? No, you see that ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov



Words linked to "Humourous" :   ironical, farcical, screaming, joking, hilarious, seriocomic, jesting, ludicrous, bantering, tragicomic, funny, risible, comic, dry, seriocomical, humorless, droll, laughable, facetious, slapstick, tongue-in-cheek, pleasing



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