humor

humor
    n 1: a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity
         has the power to evoke laughter [syn: {wit}, {humor},
         {humour}, {witticism}, {wittiness}]
    2: the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the
       humorous; "she didn't appreciate my humor"; "you can't
       survive in the army without a sense of humor" [syn: {humor},
       {humour}, {sense of humor}, {sense of humour}]
    3: a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of
       feeling; "whether he praised or cursed me depended on his
       temper at the time"; "he was in a bad humor" [syn: {temper},
       {mood}, {humor}, {humour}]
    4: the quality of being funny; "I fail to see the humor in it"
       [syn: {humor}, {humour}]
    5: (Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose
       balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical
       state; "the humors are blood and phlegm and yellow and black
       bile" [syn: {humor}, {humour}]
    6: the liquid parts of the body [syn: {liquid body substance},
       {bodily fluid}, {body fluid}, {humor}, {humour}]
    v 1: put into a good mood [syn: {humor}, {humour}]
    

Humor \Hu"mor\, n. [OE. humour, OF. humor, umor, F. humeur, L.
   humor, umor, moisture, fluid, fr. humere, umere, to be moist.
   See {Humid}.] [Written also {humour}.]
   1. Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal
      bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the
      eye, etc.
      [1913 Webster]

   Note: The ancient physicians believed that there were four
         humors (the blood, phlegm, yellow bile or choler, and
         black bile or melancholy), on the relative proportion
         of which the temperament and health depended.
         [1913 Webster]

   2. (Med.) A vitiated or morbid animal fluid, such as often
      causes an eruption on the skin. "A body full of humors."
      --Sir W. Temple.
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   3. State of mind, whether habitual or temporary (as formerly
      supposed to depend on the character or combination of the
      fluids of the body); disposition; temper; mood; as, good
      humor; ill humor.
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            Examine how your humor is inclined,
            And which the ruling passion of your mind.
                                                  --Roscommon.
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            A prince of a pleasant humor.         --Bacon.
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            I like not the humor of lying.        --Shak.
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   4. pl. Changing and uncertain states of mind; caprices;
      freaks; vagaries; whims.
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            Is my friend all perfection, all virtue and
            discretion? Has he not humors to be endured?
                                                  --South.
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   5. That quality of the imagination which gives to ideas an
      incongruous or fantastic turn, and tends to excite
      laughter or mirth by ludicrous images or representations;
      a playful fancy; facetiousness.
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            For thy sake I admit
            That a Scot may have humor, I'd almost said wit.
                                                  --Goldsmith.
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            A great deal of excellent humor was expended on the
            perplexities of mine host.            --W. Irving.
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   {Aqueous humor}, {Crystalline humor} or {Crystalline lens},
   {Vitreous humor}. (Anat.) See {Eye}.

   {Out of humor}, dissatisfied; displeased; in an unpleasant
      frame of mind.

   Syn: Wit; satire; pleasantry; temper; disposition; mood;
        frame; whim; fancy; caprice. See {Wit}.
        [1913 Webster]
    

Humor \Hu"mor\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Humored}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Humoring}.]
   1. To comply with the humor of; to adjust matters so as suit
      the peculiarities, caprices, or exigencies of; to adapt
      one's self to; to indulge by skillful adaptation; as, to
      humor the mind.
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            It is my part to invent, and the musician's to humor
            that invention.                       --Dryden.
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   2. To help on by indulgence or compliant treatment; to
      soothe; to gratify; to please.
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            You humor me when I am sick.          --Pope.

   Syn: To gratify; to indulge. See {Gratify}.
        [1913 Webster]
    

hacker humour
humor
humour

   A distinctive style of shared intellectual humour found among
   hackers, having the following marked characteristics:

   1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and
   humour having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}).
   One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front
   of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note,
   however, that this is funny only the first time).

   2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual
   constructs, such as specifications (see {write-only memory}),
   standards documents, language descriptions (see {INTERCAL}),
   and even entire scientific theories (see {quantum
   bogodynamics}, {computron}).

   3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
   ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.

   4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.

   5. A fondness for apparently mindless humour with subversive
   currents of intelligence in it - for example, old Warner
   Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers,
   the early B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Humour
   that combines this trait with elements of high camp and
   slapstick is especially favoured.

   6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated
   ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism.  See {has the X
   nature}, {Discordianism}, {zen}, {ha ha only serious}, {AI
   koan}.

   See also {filk} and {retrocomputing}.  If you have an itchy
   feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one
   thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
   are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker.  These
   traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form)
   throughout {science-fiction fandom}.

   (1995-12-18)
    

288 Moby Thesaurus words for "humor":
      Atticism, Rh factor, Rh-negative, Rh-positive, Rh-type,
      Rhesus factor, agile wit, ambiversion, antibody, antigen, appease,
      arterial blood, baby, banter, bay, bee, black humor, blood,
      blood bank, blood cell, blood count, blood donor,
      blood donor center, blood group, blood grouping, blood picture,
      blood platelet, blood pressure, blood serum, blood substitute,
      bloodmobile, bloodstream, body-build, bogginess, boutade,
      brainstorm, brand, burlesque, capriccio, caprice, caricature, cast,
      cater to, chaffing, character, characteristic, characteristics,
      chitchat, chyle, circulation, clinical dextran, cocker, coddle,
      colostrum, comedy, comicality, comicalness, complexion,
      composition, conceit, constituents, constitution, cosset, cotton,
      crank, crasis, craze, crazy idea, crotchet, cue,
      cycloid personality, cyclothymia, damp, dampness, dewiness,
      dextran, dharma, diathesis, discharge, disposition, drollery,
      drollness, dry wit, ectomorphism, ectomorphy, endomorphism,
      endomorphy, erythrocyte, esprit, ethos, extroversion,
      extrovertedness, exudation, facetiousness, fad, fancy,
      fantastic notion, fantasy, farce, favor, fiber, flimflam,
      flippancy, fogginess, fool notion, frame, frame of mind, freak,
      freakish inspiration, funniness, gags, genius, give way to, gleet,
      globulin, gore, grain, gratify, grume, habit, harebrained idea,
      heart, hematics, hematologist, hematology, hematoscope,
      hematoscopy, hemocyte, hemoglobin, hemometer, hue, humectation,
      humorousness, humors, ichor, ilk, individualism, individuality,
      indulge, ingoingness, introversion, introvertedness, irony,
      isoantibody, jesting, jocoseness, jocularity, jocundity, jokes,
      joking, jolly, kidding, kind, kink, lachryma, lactation, lampoon,
      leukocyte, leukorrhea, levity, lifeblood, lightness, ludicrousness,
      lymph, maggot, makeup, marshiness, matter, megrim, mesomorphism,
      mesomorphy, milk, mind, mistiness, moistiness, moistness, moisture,
      mold, mollify, mollycoddle, mood, morale, mucor, mucus, nature,
      neutrophil, nimble wit, note, notion, oblige, opsonin,
      other-directedness, outgoingness, pamper, parody, passing fancy,
      peccant humor, personality, personality tendency, phagocyte,
      phlegm, physique, placate, plasma, plasma substitute, pleasantry,
      please, pretty wit, property, purulence, pus, quality, quick wit,
      quirk, raillery, rainfall, raininess, ready wit, red corpuscle,
      repartee, rheum, saliva, salt, sanies, sarcasm, satire, satisfy,
      savor of wit, schizoid personality, schizothymia, serous fluid,
      serum, showeriness, slapstick, slapstick humor, snot, soddenness,
      sogginess, somatotype, soothe, soppiness, sort, spirit, spirits,
      spoil, squib, stamp, state of mind, strain, streak, stripe,
      subtle wit, suchness, suppuration, swampiness, sweat, syntony,
      system, tear, teardrop, temper, temperament, tendency, tenor,
      the whites, tone, toy, travesty, type, type O, urine, vagary, vein,
      venous blood, visual humor, waggishness, wateriness, way, wet,
      wetness, wettishness, whim, whim-wham, whimsy, white corpuscle,
      wit, wittiness, yield to