Funnier

How to spell funnier

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce funnier

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does funnier mean?

1. adjectiveMore amusing or more likely to cause laughter than something else.

Funnier in a sentence

• The second comedian was much funnier than the opening act.

• His email reply was funnier than the original joke.

Where does funnier come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the comparative form of the adjective 'funny', which was built on the noun 'fun'. The noun 'fun' surfaced in English around the late 1600s, very likely from an older verb 'fun' or 'fon' meaning 'to cheat, hoax, or make a fool of someone', and that verb in turn relates to the Middle English 'fonne', a word for a fool or simpleton. For its first century or so 'fun' carried a slightly disreputable flavour of trickery before settling into its modern sense of harmless amusement. Adding the adjective ending '-y' produced 'funny', and forming the comparative meant doubling the single 'n' and switching the 'y' to 'i' before '-er', which is exactly the spelling pattern worth remembering. The doubled 'n' is the main trap: because 'fun' has just one 'n', writers sometimes carry that single 'n' over by mistake.

How the word is built

• fun (amusement)
• -y (adjective, with doubled n)
• -er (comparative)