Laugh

How to spell laugh

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce laugh

What does laugh mean?

1. verbTo make the sounds and movements that express amusement or joy.
2. nounThe act or sound of laughing.

Laugh in a sentence

• verb

  The comedian's timing made the whole audience laugh.

• noun

  His sudden laugh echoed across the quiet office.

• verb

  Her silly stories always make the children laugh.

Where does laugh come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from the Old English verb hlæhhan, meaning 'to laugh', which was rooted in a sound that imitated the noise of laughter itself. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close cousins in Dutch lachen and German lachen, all tracing back to a common ancestor that mimicked a hearty chuckle. The puzzling 'gh' in the modern spelling preserves a throaty consonant that medieval English speakers actually pronounced, somewhat like the 'ch' in the Scottish word 'loch'. Over the centuries that sound either fell silent, as in 'though', or hardened into an 'f' sound, which is exactly what happened in 'laugh', 'cough', and 'enough'. This is why the word looks nothing like it sounds: the spelling froze around a pronunciation that English abandoned long ago, and that mismatch is the trap for writers today.

How the word is built

• laugh (from Old English hlæhhan: to laugh)
• silent -gh spelling fossil