[syn: humor, humour]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Humor \Hu"mor\, n. [OE. humour, OF. humor, umor, F. humeur, L.
humor, umor, moisture, fluid, fr. humere, umere, to be moist.
See Humid.] [Written also humour.]
1. Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal
bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the
eye, etc.
[1913 Webster]
Note: The ancient physicians believed that there were four
humors (the blood, phlegm, yellow bile or choler, and
black bile or melancholy), on the relative proportion
of which the temperament and health depended.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Med.) A vitiated or morbid animal fluid, such as often
causes an eruption on the skin. "A body full of humors."
--Sir W. Temple.
[1913 Webster]
3. State of mind, whether habitual or temporary (as formerly
supposed to depend on the character or combination of the
fluids of the body); disposition; temper; mood; as, good
humor; ill humor.
[1913 Webster]
Examine how your humor is inclined,
And which the ruling passion of your mind.
--Roscommon.
[1913 Webster]
A prince of a pleasant humor. --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
I like not the humor of lying. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
4. pl. Changing and uncertain states of mind; caprices;
freaks; vagaries; whims.
[1913 Webster]
Is my friend all perfection, all virtue and
discretion? Has he not humors to be endured?
--South.
[1913 Webster]
5. That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an
incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite
laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations;
a playful fancy; facetiousness.
[1913 Webster]
For thy sake I admit
That a Scot may have humor, I'd almost said wit.
--Goldsmith.
[1913 Webster]
A great deal of excellent humor was expended on the
perplexities of mine host. --W. Irving.
[1913 Webster]
Aqueous humor, Crystalline humor or Crystalline lens,
Vitreous humor. (Anat.) See Eye.
Out of humor, dissatisfied; displeased; in an unpleasant
frame of mind.
Syn: Wit; satire; pleasantry; temper; disposition; mood;
frame; whim; fancy; caprice. See Wit.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Humor \Hu"mor\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Humored; p. pr. & vb. n.
Humoring.]
1. To comply with the humor of; to adjust matters so as suit
the peculiarities, caprices, or exigencies of; to adapt
one's self to; to indulge by skillful adaptation; as, to
humor the mind.
[1913 Webster]
It is my part to invent, and the musician's to humor
that invention. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
2. To help on by indulgence or compliant treatment; to
soothe; to gratify; to please.
[1913 Webster]
You humor me when I am sick. --Pope.
Syn: To gratify; to indulge. See Gratify.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
humor
n 1: a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity
has the power to evoke laughter [syn: wit, humor,
humour, witticism, wittiness]
2: the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the
humorous; "she didn't appreciate my humor"; "you can't
survive in the army without a sense of humor" [syn: humor,
humour, sense of humor, sense of humour]
3: a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of
feeling; "whether he praised or cursed me depended on his
temper at the time"; "he was in a bad humor" [syn: temper,
mood, humor, humour]
4: the quality of being funny; "I fail to see the humor in it"
[syn: humor, humour]
5: (Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose
balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical
state; "the humors are blood and phlegm and yellow and black
bile" [syn: humor, humour]
6: the liquid parts of the body [syn: liquid body substance,
bodily fluid, body fluid, humor, humour]
v 1: put into a good mood [syn: humor, humour]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
288 Moby Thesaurus words for "humor":
Atticism, Rh factor, Rh-negative, Rh-positive, Rh-type,
Rhesus factor, agile wit, ambiversion, antibody, antigen, appease,
arterial blood, baby, banter, bay, bee, black humor, blood,
blood bank, blood cell, blood count, blood donor,
blood donor center, blood group, blood grouping, blood picture,
blood platelet, blood pressure, blood serum, blood substitute,
bloodmobile, bloodstream, body-build, bogginess, boutade,
brainstorm, brand, burlesque, capriccio, caprice, caricature, cast,
cater to, chaffing, character, characteristic, characteristics,
chitchat, chyle, circulation, clinical dextran, cocker, coddle,
colostrum, comedy, comicality, comicalness, complexion,
composition, conceit, constituents, constitution, cosset, cotton,
crank, crasis, craze, crazy idea, crotchet, cue,
cycloid personality, cyclothymia, damp, dampness, dewiness,
dextran, dharma, diathesis, discharge, disposition, drollery,
drollness, dry wit, ectomorphism, ectomorphy, endomorphism,
endomorphy, erythrocyte, esprit, ethos, extroversion,
extrovertedness, exudation, facetiousness, fad, fancy,
fantastic notion, fantasy, farce, favor, fiber, flimflam,
flippancy, fogginess, fool notion, frame, frame of mind, freak,
freakish inspiration, funniness, gags, genius, give way to, gleet,
globulin, gore, grain, gratify, grume, habit, harebrained idea,
heart, hematics, hematologist, hematology, hematoscope,
hematoscopy, hemocyte, hemoglobin, hemometer, hue, humectation,
humorousness, humors, ichor, ilk, individualism, individuality,
indulge, ingoingness, introversion, introvertedness, irony,
isoantibody, jesting, jocoseness, jocularity, jocundity, jokes,
joking, jolly, kidding, kind, kink, lachryma, lactation, lampoon,
leukocyte, leukorrhea, levity, lifeblood, lightness, ludicrousness,
lymph, maggot, makeup, marshiness, matter, megrim, mesomorphism,
mesomorphy, milk, mind, mistiness, moistiness, moistness, moisture,
mold, mollify, mollycoddle, mood, morale, mucor, mucus, nature,
neutrophil, nimble wit, note, notion, oblige, opsonin,
other-directedness, outgoingness, pamper, parody, passing fancy,
peccant humor, personality, personality tendency, phagocyte,
phlegm, physique, placate, plasma, plasma substitute, pleasantry,
please, pretty wit, property, purulence, pus, quality, quick wit,
quirk, raillery, rainfall, raininess, ready wit, red corpuscle,
repartee, rheum, saliva, salt, sanies, sarcasm, satire, satisfy,
savor of wit, schizoid personality, schizothymia, serous fluid,
serum, showeriness, slapstick, slapstick humor, snot, soddenness,
sogginess, somatotype, soothe, soppiness, sort, spirit, spirits,
spoil, squib, stamp, state of mind, strain, streak, stripe,
subtle wit, suchness, suppuration, swampiness, sweat, syntony,
system, tear, teardrop, temper, temperament, tendency, tenor,
the whites, tone, toy, travesty, type, type O, urine, vagary, vein,
venous blood, visual humor, waggishness, wateriness, way, wet,
wetness, wettishness, whim, whim-wham, whimsy, white corpuscle,
wit, wittiness, yield to
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
hacker humour
humor
humour
A distinctive style of shared intellectual humour found among
hackers, having the following marked characteristics:
1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and
humour having to do with confusion of metalevels (see meta).
One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front
of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note,
however, that this is funny only the first time).
2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual
constructs, such as specifications (see write-only memory),
standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL),
and even entire scientific theories (see quantum
bogodynamics, computron).
3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.
5. A fondness for apparently mindless humour with subversive
currents of intelligence in it - for example, old Warner
Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers,
the early B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humour
that combines this trait with elements of high camp and
slapstick is especially favoured.
6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated
ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See has the X
nature, Discordianism, zen, ha ha only serious, AI
koan.
See also filk and retrocomputing. If you have an itchy
feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one
thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker. These
traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form)
throughout science-fiction fandom.
(1995-12-18)