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MIRTH
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Great merriment
Synonyms:
glee; gleefulness; hilarity; mirth; mirthfulness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("mirth" is a kind of...):
gaiety; merriment (a gay feeling)
Context examples:
He ventured among them again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for the mirth of the party in general.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Hiding the ravages of care with a sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no hope of the remittance!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
His mirth was hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Their eager affection in meeting, their exquisite delight in being together, their hours of happy mirth, and moments of serious conference, may be imagined; as well as the sanguine views and spirits of the boy even to the last, and the misery of the girl when he left her.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
What I did, said Alleyne, was too small a thing for thanks; and yet, if I may say it without offence, it was too grave and near a matter for mirth and raillery.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The letters from town, which a few days before would have made every nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read with less emotion than mirth.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Poor Traddles—I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes—was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the narrative.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The captain understood my raillery very well, and merrily replied with the old English proverb, that he doubted mine eyes were bigger than my belly, for he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and, continuing in his mirth, protested he would have gladly given a hundred pounds, to have seen my closet in the eagle’s bill, and afterwards in its fall from so great a height into the sea; which would certainly have been a most astonishing object, worthy to have the description of it transmitted to future ages: and the comparison of Phaëton was so obvious, that he could not forbear applying it, although I did not much admire the conceit.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
