laughter – English noun declension

English noun forms of laughter

Noun: laughter
Singularlaughter
Plurallaughters

Sample Sentences

  • Their loud laughter betrayed their presence.
  • There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town. [1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock:]
  • The act of laughter, which is caused by a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves. [1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC:]
  • Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter. [1858 October 16, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Courtship of Miles Standish”, in The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:]

Etymology

From Middle English laughter, laghter, laȝter, from Old English hleahtor (“laughter, jubilation, derision”), from Proto-Germanic *hlahtraz (“laughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *klek-, *kleg- (“to shout”). Cognate with German Gelächter (“laughter, hilarity, merriment”), Danish and Norwegian latter (“laughter”), Icelandic hlátur (“laughter”). More at laugh. See: Middle English Nouns 'laughter', Old English Nouns 'hleahtor', German Nouns 'Gelächter'.

Verbs referencing "laughter"

Danish Nouns latter, Norwegian Bokmål Nouns lått, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns lått, German Nouns Gelächter.