Humorous

How to spell humorous

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce humorous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does humorous mean?

1. adjectiveCausing laughter or amusement; funny in a light, witty way.

Humorous in a sentence

• The speaker opened with a humorous anecdote about his first job.

• Her email carried a humorous tone that lightened the tense meeting.

Where does humorous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin humor, which literally meant 'moisture' or 'liquid', the same root that gives us 'humid'. In medieval medicine the four bodily fluids, called humours (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile), were believed to govern a person's temperament and mood. By extension a person's 'humour' came to mean their disposition or state of mind, and from the 1500s an odd or quirky disposition was described as humorous. Over time the sense narrowed to mean 'amusing' or 'comical', the meaning we use today. The notable spelling trap is that the adjective drops the 'u' of British 'humour', so it is humorous everywhere, never 'humourous'.

How the word is built

• humor- (from Latin humor: moisture, bodily fluid)
• -ous (full of, characterised by)