Word.ws English Dictionary

underlaughter

underlaughter noun: suppressed laughter or laughing.

Noun

underlaughter (uncountable)

  1. Suppressed laughter or laughing
    • “Of course I am, thank you,” said Clover in a voice which also he would hardly have recognized, so gay was it with a ripple of underlaughter.1922, Berta Ruck, The Subconscious Courtship, page 340
    • Herrick could not guide Corinna, and Pope could not guide Mrs. Blount, into a definite, satisfying image because their ladies were too multiform and subtle, too likely to recede into airy sourire, underlaughter, to permit any resolution, any pinning tot he wall; […]1985, Daniel Albright, Lyricality in English literature, page 126
    Synonyms:
    snickering

Synonyms of underlaughter

Origin of underlaughter

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

Questions about underlaughter

What does underlaughter mean?
Underlaughter means suppressed laughter or laughing.
What part of speech is underlaughter?
Underlaughter is a noun.

Words near underlaughter in the dictionary

  1. underlapped
  2. underlapping
  3. underlaps
  4. underlaugh
  5. underlaughs
  6. underlaughter
  7. underlaundress
  8. underlaundresses
  9. underlawyer
  10. underlawyers
  11. underlay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underlaughter (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underlaughter.wav.

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