Word.ws English Dictionary

haw-haw

haw-haw is the alternative form of ha-ha.

haw-haw is the alternative form of ha ha.

Meaning of ha-ha

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
  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...

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
    Synonyms:
    ha-ha fence, sunk fence

See all 5 meanings of ha-ha

Meaning of ha ha

Interjection

  1. Expression of laughter.
    • and cryden out harrow and weilaway
      ha ha the fox and after hym they ran
      and eek with staves many other man1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok / and Hen / Chaũtecler ⁊ Ꝑtelote”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion...
  2. A defiant expression used to tease somebody.

Forms of haw-haw

Noun
pluralhaw-haws
Verb
third-person singular presenthaw-haws
present participlehaw-hawing
past participlehaw-hawed
pasthaw-hawed

Questions about haw-haw

What is haw-haw the alternative form of?
Haw-haw is the alternative form of ha-ha.

Words near haw-haw in the dictionary

  1. haw and gee
  2. Haw Creek
  3. Haw River syndrome
  4. haw tree
  5. haw trees
  6. haw-haw
  7. haw-hawed
  8. haw-hawing
  9. haw-haws
  10. Haw.
  11. Hawai'i

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haw-haw (page history and authors); ha-ha (page history and authors); ha ha (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “haw-haw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/haw-haw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.