Laughable

How to spell laughable

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce laughable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does laughable mean?

1. adjectiveSo absurd, poor, or ridiculous as to deserve mockery rather than serious consideration.

Laughable in a sentence

• The company offered a laughable sum for years of loyal service.

• His excuse for missing the deadline was frankly laughable.

Where does laughable come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'laugh' descends from the Old English hlæhhan, meaning 'to laugh', which itself goes back to a Germanic root that imitated the sound of laughter, related to Dutch lachen and German lachen. The early spellings carried a guttural sound, written with the cluster that later settled into the English 'gh', a spelling that survived long after the actual sound it once represented faded from speech. The adjective 'laughable' was formed in English by adding the Latin-derived suffix -able, meaning 'capable of' or 'worthy of', so the word literally means 'able to be laughed at'. It appears from around the sixteenth century, at first neutrally describing anything that prompts laughter, before drifting toward its modern, mostly mocking sense of something so poor or absurd that it deserves ridicule. The trap for writers is entirely visual: the silent 'gh' inherited from that long-lost throaty sound, plus the unstressed -able ending that sounds identical to -ible.

How the word is built

• laugh (from Old English hlæhhan: to laugh)
• -able (suffix: capable of, fit for)