mirth

plural mirths

1. uncountableusuallyThe emotion usually following humor and accompanied by laughter.

   But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   5 more examples

   To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations.

   1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC

   And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that, though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth.

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

   All these acquaintances he observed with difficulty concealing their mirth at something; the same mirth that he had perceived in the lawyer's eyes, and just now in the eyes of this groom.

   1901 [1878], chapter 19, in Constance Garnett, transl., Anna Karenina, translation of Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) by Leo Tolstoy, part 4

   She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as children do when they cannot contain themselves, and can not explain the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly together.

   1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl

   Synonyms: merriment, delight, glee, hilarity, jollity, gaiety, blitheness, blithesomeness · Antonyms: sadness, gloom, mirthless, blueness, tristesse, mirthlessness, blues, crestfallenness

2. uncountableusuallyThat which causes merriment.

   Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC