ha-ha

Interjection

1. An approximation of the sound of laughter.

Noun (1)

ha-ha (plural ha-has)

1. A laugh.
   • His ha-ha grated on our ears as he fled down the stairs three steps at a time with us in hot pursuit.1916 June, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 141, column 1
   • Ha-has from both sides of the door.1957, Ernie Kovacs, Zoomar: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →OCLC, page 28
2. Something funny; a joke.
   • Durty Nelly's, […] You'll catch a few ha-has and even a golden memory or two singing along with the house piano player.1983 March, Patricia Sharpe, Helen Thompson, “Around the State: A Selective Statewide Guide to Amusements and Events”, in Texas Monthly, volume 11, number 3, Austin, Tx.: Texas Monthly, Inc., →ISSN...
   • She is not rewarded until she learns to reduce her expectations, and surprises (the ha-has of this novel) are the educational tool.1996, Lois A. Chaber, “Sir Charles Grandison and the Human Prospect”, in Albert J. Rivero, editor, New Essays on Samuel Richardson, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 196

Verb

ha-ha (third-person singular simple present ha-has or ha-ha's, present participle ha-haing or ha-ha'ing or ha-ha-ing, simple past and past participle ha-haed or ha-ha'd or ha-ha'ed or ha-ha-ed)

1. To laugh.
   • He was much affected, said it was his lullaby when he was a baby, that she must stop or she would have him boo-hoo-ing right out. But he was ha-ha-ing a few moments after, and begging her “To take him for her lover, and let all those inconstant swains glide, they were not worth one of those...1863, Hearton Drille [pseudonym; Jeannie H. Grey], Tactics; Or, Cupid in Shoulder-Straps. A West Point Love Story., New York, N.Y.: Carleton, […], page 214
   • Out with the fashion that will let a man smile, but pronounces him vulgar if he ha-ha’s.1893, “Address by Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.”, in Annual Graduating Exercises of Peirce School of Business and Shorthand American Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., Thomas May Peirce, page 131

Noun (2)

ha-ha (plural ha-has)

1. A ditch with one vertical side, acting as a sunken fence, designed to block the entry of animals into lawns and parks without breaking sightlines.
   • A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they had been talking of; and standing back, well shaded and sheltered, and looking over a ha-ha into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench, on which they all sat down.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 197
   • This pathway ran up hill, across another open space covered with white incrustation, and plunged into a canebrake again. Then suddenly it turned parallel with the edge of a steep-walled gap, which came without warning, like the ha-ha of an English park,—turned with an unexpected abruptness. I was...1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Sayers of the Law”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished as The...

   Synonyms:

   ha-ha fence, sunk fence