humorist

plural humorists · alternative humourist

1. archaichistoricalmedicineSomeone who believes that health and temperament are determined by bodily humours; a humoralist.First known use 16th c.
2. obsoleteSomeone subject to whims or fancies; an eccentric.First known use 16th–19th c.

   I called on him and found him a contemporary of Beauclerk and Langton at Trinity College, Oxford, and a man of reading and animation, but a kind of humourist.

   1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 175

   1 more example

   She and the duke used to rally me upon my fondness for lord W—m, who was a sort of an humourist, and apt to be in a pet, in which case he would leave the company, and go to bed by seven o'clock in the evening.

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

3. A humorous or witty person, especially someone skilled in humorous writing or performance.First known use 17th c.

   Art Buchwald, who satirized the follies of the rich, the famous and the powerful for half a century as the most widely read newspaper humorist of his time, died Wednesday night in Washington.

   2007 January 18, Richard Severo, “Art Buchwald, 81, Columnist and Humorist Who Delighted in the Absurd”, in The New York Times

   2 more examples

   Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia's mother was not a humourist.

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   But when it comes to conveying what made these people funny, what impact they had in their day and, especially, what debt they are owed by present-day humorists, Johnson doesn’t put much meat on the old bones.

   2010 December 24, Neil Genzlinger, “What’s So Funny?”, in The New York Times

4. One who studies or portrays the humours of people.