Underlaugh

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A suppressed laugh

    "John Joy Tree greeted this with an ugly underlaugh, a barely audible sound which made Casher feel the whole situation was ridiculous."

Example

More examples

"John Joy Tree greeted this with an ugly underlaugh, a barely audible sound which made Casher feel the whole situation was ridiculous."

Etymology

Probably derived from Middle English underlaughen (“to smile; smile with the eyes”), Middle English underlaughteren (“to smirk”), equivalent to under- + laugh.

Related phrases

church giggles

More for "underlaugh"

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