Chuckle

//ˈt͡ʃʌkəl// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A quiet laugh.
  2. 2
    a soft partly suppressed laugh wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To laugh quietly or inwardly.
  2. 2
    laugh quietly or with restraint wordnet
  3. 3
    To communicate through chuckling. transitive

    "She chuckled her assent to my offer as she got in the car."

  4. 4
    To make the sound of a chicken; to cluck. archaic, intransitive
  5. 5
    To call together, or call to follow, as a hen calls her chickens; to cluck. archaic, transitive

    "if these Birds are within distance, here's that will chuckle 'em together"

Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To fondle; to indulge or pamper. archaic, transitive
Adjective
  1. 1
    Clumsy. obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms
chortlechortlegigglelaughsniggertitter

Example

More examples

"When she saw the lengths he'd gone to to get all dressed up, she couldn't help letting a brief chuckle escape."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From chuck (“laugh”) + -le.

Etymology 2

Perhaps from chock (“a log”).

Related phrases

light laughslight laugh

More for "chuckle"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.