humour

Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as "humours" (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people can experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by subjective personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or cartoons such as Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Humour”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

humour is tendency of someone to point out and emphasize the comical nature of something (or the mental state that leads to this tendency), according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 53 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶