Mirth
Pronunciation
- US IPA: /mÉθ/; enPR: mûrth
- RP IPA: /mÉœËθ/
- Rhymes: -ÉœË(ɹ)θ
Full definition of mirth
Noun
mirth
(plural mirths)- The emotion usually following humour and accompanied by laughter; merriment; jollity; gaiety.
- 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that, though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 2, She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, …; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, …—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.
- That which causes merriment.
- 1922, James Joyce, ''Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.