Mirth

//mɜɹθ// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The emotion usually following humor and accompanied by laughter. uncountable, usually

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

  2. 2
    great merriment wordnet
  3. 3
    That which causes merriment. uncountable, usually

    "Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed."

Synonyms

All synonyms
gleegleefulnesshilarityhilaritymirthfulnessamusement

Example

More examples

"Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after."

Etymology

From Middle English merth, myrthe, murhthe, from Old English myrġþ (“mirth, joy”), from Proto-West Germanic *murgiþu (“briefness, brevity”); equivalent to merry + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch merchte (“pleasure, joy, delight”).

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