humour
noun
[ ˈhjuːmə ]
• the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech.
• "his tales are full of humour"
Similar:
comical aspect,
comic side,
funny side,
comedy,
funniness,
hilarity,
jocularity,
absurdity,
absurdness,
ludicrousness,
drollness,
facetiousness,
satire,
irony,
• a mood or state of mind.
• "her good humour vanished"
• each of the four chief fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile (choler), and black bile (melancholy)) that were thought to determine a person's physical and mental qualities by the relative proportions in which they were present.
humour
verb
• comply with the wishes of (someone) in order to keep them content, however unreasonable such wishes might be.
• "she was always humouring him to prevent trouble"
Similar:
indulge,
pander to,
yield to,
bow to,
cater to,
give way to,
give in to,
go along with,
comply with,
adapt to,
accommodate,
pamper,
spoil,
overindulge,
cosset,
coddle,
mollycoddle,
mollify,
soothe,
placate,
gratify,
satisfy,
Opposite:
stand up to,
Origin:
Middle English: via Old French from Latin humor ‘moisture’, from humere (see humid). The original sense was ‘bodily fluid’ (surviving in aqueous humour and vitreous humour ); it was used specifically for any of the cardinal humours (humour (sense 3 of the noun)), whence ‘mental disposition’ (thought to be caused by the relative proportions of the humours). This led, in the 16th century, to the senses ‘mood’ (humour (sense 2 of the noun)) and ‘whim’, hence to humour someone ‘to indulge a person's whim’. humour (sense 1 of the noun) dates from the late 16th century.
