Humor

How to spell humor

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce humor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does humor mean?

1. nounThe quality of being funny or amusing, or the ability to find things funny.
2. nounA person's temporary state of mind or mood.
3. verbTo comply with someone's wishes in order to keep them content.

Humor in a sentence

• noun

  The speech was full of warmth and gentle humor.

• noun

  The boss arrived in a foul humor after the delayed flight.

• verb

  The nurses learned to humor the most demanding patients.

• noun

  She kept her sense of humor even during the audit.

• noun

  A good night of sleep left her in better humor.

• verb

  He decided to humor his grandmother and listen to the whole story again.

Where does humor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin humor, which literally meant 'moisture' or 'fluid', a relative of humere 'to be wet'. In ancient and medieval medicine the four cardinal fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) were called the humors, and a person's temperament was thought to depend on the balance among them. From naming bodily fluids the word drifted to naming moods and dispositions, so 'good humor' once meant simply a healthy or pleasant temperament. By the 1600s it had narrowed to the modern sense of the comic, the quality that amuses or makes us laugh. English took the word in through Old French humour during the medieval period; the American spelling later dropped the French 'u' that British and Canadian writers still keep in 'humour', which is the main spelling trap.

How the word is built

• humor (from Latin humor: moisture, bodily fluid); no affixes in the modern form

British and American spelling

Humor is the American spelling. British English spells it humour.