Word for being humorous

So I’m trying to write a piece of dialogue and I can’t remember this word for the life of me and Google isn’t helping. I know it’s similar to sarcasm in usage but not quite.

The characters are in a cave. That’s the obvious bit.

«Yeah,» he said as he pushed himself off the ground. «Where are we?»

«A cave,» He said ____

What word should I use. Please help.

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asked Apr 17, 2019 at 20:51

JustFriendly's user avatar

6

The word to express how humour might be delivered in a deadpan or ironic manner is:

drily (also dryly)
ADVERB

  1. In a matter-of-fact or ironically humorous way.
    » ‘How very observant’, he said drily»
    » ‘Fifty songs,’ I mused. ‘Five thousand dollars worth of digital matter,’ I added to myself dryly.»
    » ‘We call it the belly of the beast,’ she dryly remarks.»

[Source: Oxford Living Dictionaries]

Merriam-Webster doesn’t specifically define the adverb, but gives the following definition for the adjective and notes «dryly also drily adverb»:

  1. marked by matter-of-fact, ironic, or terse manner of expression
    a dry wit
    has a very dry sense of humor

The key in using drily is that there is an element of humour or irony inherent in the statement but the delivery itself gives no indication of humour or other emotion.

answered Apr 17, 2019 at 23:02

Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Monica's user avatar

0

Making a joke that is obvious, and perhaps sometimes inappropriate, is to be facetious:

[Merriam-Webster]
1 : joking or jesting often inappropriately : WAGGISH
// just being facetious
2 : meant to be humorous or funny : not serious
// a facetious remark

In your example, you would use its adverb form.

The characters are obviously in a cave, so:

«A cave,» he said facetiously.

answered Apr 18, 2019 at 1:29

Jason Bassford's user avatar

Jason BassfordJason Bassford

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1

1

as in funny

causing or intended to cause laughter

the humorous moments in an otherwise somber affair «most humorous costume» went to the girl dressed as Little Bo Peep


2

as in witty

given to or marked by mature intelligent humor

the movie’s a humorous look at love and marriage


Synonym Chooser

How is the word humorous distinct from other similar adjectives?

Some common synonyms of humorous are facetious, jocose, jocular, and witty. While all these words mean «provoking or intended to provoke laughter,» humorous applies broadly to anything that evokes usually genial laughter and may contrast with witty in suggesting whimsicality or eccentricity.

In what contexts can facetious take the place of humorous?

While the synonyms facetious and humorous are close in meaning, facetious stresses a desire to produce laughter and may be derogatory in implying dubious or ill-timed attempts at wit or humor.

How are the words jocose and facetious related as synonyms of humorous?

Jocose is somewhat less derogatory than facetious in suggesting habitual waggishness or playfulness.

When might jocular be a better fit than humorous?

The synonyms jocular and humorous are sometimes interchangeable, but jocular implies a usually habitual fondness for jesting and joking.

When is witty a more appropriate choice than humorous?

Although the words witty and humorous have much in common, witty suggests cleverness and quickness of mind.

Thesaurus Entries Near humorous

Cite this Entry

“Humorous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/humorous. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.

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More from Merriam-Webster on humorous

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Merriam-Webster unabridged

  • amusing
  • comic
  • droll
  • entertaining
  • hilarious
  • playful
  • pleasant
  • whimsical
  • camp
  • campy
  • facetious
  • farcical
  • jocose
  • jocular
  • jokey
  • joshing
  • laughable
  • ludicrous
  • merry
  • priceless
  • ribald
  • screaming
  • side-splitting
  • too funny for words
  • waggish
  • witty

On this page you’ll find 77 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to humorous, such as: amusing, comic, droll, entertaining, hilarious, and playful.

Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

TRY USING humorous

See how your sentence looks with different synonyms.

How to use humorous in a sentence

«You positively convulse me, you’re so very humorous,» said Robinson, without a vestige of a smile.

DAVY AND THE GOBLINCHARLES E. CARRYL

Perhaps our comic papers have never heard of the Improvement Clubs, or find nothing in them that is humorous.

ANCESTORSGERTRUDE ATHERTON

SYNONYM OF THE DAY

OCTOBER 26, 1985

WORDS RELATED TO HUMOROUS

  • agreeable
  • boffo
  • camp
  • campy
  • charming
  • cheerful
  • cheering
  • comical
  • cut up
  • delightful
  • diverting
  • droll
  • enchanting
  • engaging
  • enjoyable
  • entertaining
  • for grins
  • fun
  • gladdening
  • gratifying
  • gut-busting
  • humorous
  • interesting
  • jocular
  • jokey
  • joshing
  • laughable
  • lively
  • merry
  • pleasant
  • pleasing
  • priceless
  • screaming
  • sidesplitting
  • too funny for words
  • witty
  • Mickey Mouse
  • absurd
  • batty
  • boffo
  • camp
  • crazy
  • dippy
  • diverting
  • dizzy
  • droll
  • entertaining
  • facetious
  • farcical
  • flaky
  • fool
  • foolheaded
  • for grins
  • freaky
  • funny
  • gelastic
  • goofus
  • goofy
  • gump
  • horse’s tail
  • humorous
  • ironic
  • jerky
  • jocular
  • joking
  • joshing
  • laughable
  • light
  • loony
  • ludicrous
  • nutty
  • off the wall
  • priceless
  • ridiculous
  • risible
  • schtick
  • screwy
  • side-splitting
  • silly
  • wacky
  • waggish
  • whimsical
  • witty
  • Mickey Mouse
  • absurd
  • batty
  • boffo
  • camp
  • comic
  • crazy shtick
  • dippy
  • diverting
  • dizzy
  • droll
  • entertaining
  • facetious
  • farcical
  • flaky
  • fool
  • fool around
  • fool-headed
  • freaky
  • funny
  • gelastic
  • goofus
  • goofy
  • gump
  • humorous
  • ironic
  • jerky
  • jocular
  • joking
  • joshing
  • laughable
  • light
  • loony
  • ludicrous
  • nutty
  • priceless
  • ridiculous
  • risible
  • screwy
  • side-splitting
  • silly
  • wacky
  • waggish
  • whimsical
  • witty
  • absurd
  • camp
  • campy
  • clownish
  • comic
  • comical
  • diverting
  • eccentric
  • entertaining
  • for grins
  • funny
  • gagged up
  • gelastic
  • humorous
  • jocular
  • joshing
  • laffer
  • laughable
  • ludicrous
  • odd
  • preposterous
  • quaint
  • queer
  • quizzical
  • ridiculous
  • riot
  • risible
  • waggish
  • whimsical
  • acerbic
  • arcane
  • biting
  • caustic
  • cutting
  • cynical
  • deadpan
  • droll
  • harsh
  • humorous
  • ironical
  • keen
  • low-key
  • restrained
  • salty
  • sardonic
  • satirical
  • sharp
  • sly
  • sour
  • subtle
  • tart
  • absorbing
  • affecting
  • be a ball
  • captivating
  • charming
  • cheerful
  • cheering
  • clever
  • compelling
  • delightful
  • diverting
  • droll
  • enchanting
  • engaging
  • engrossing
  • enjoyable
  • enthralling
  • enticing
  • entrancing
  • exciting
  • fascinating
  • fun
  • funny
  • gas
  • gay
  • humorous
  • impressive
  • inspiring
  • interesting
  • lively
  • moving
  • piquant
  • pleasant
  • pleasurable
  • poignant
  • priceless
  • provocative
  • recreative
  • relaxing
  • restorative
  • riot
  • rousing
  • scream
  • side-splitting
  • stimulating
  • stirring
  • striking
  • thrilling
  • witty

Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

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Humorous Antonyms

Nearby Words

humour, humor, humorist, humourous, humoring, humored, humorously

External Links

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Similar words of humorous

Photo search results for Humorous

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Synonyms for Humorous. (2016). Retrieved 2023, April 12, from https://thesaurus.plus/synonyms/humorous

Synonyms for Humorous. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2023. <https://thesaurus.plus/synonyms/humorous>.

Synonyms for Humorous. 2016. Accessed April 12, 2023. https://thesaurus.plus/synonyms/humorous.

Below is a massive list of humorous words — that is, words related to humorous. The top 4 are: funny, hilarious, witty and silly. You can get the definition(s) of a word in the list below by tapping the question-mark icon next to it. The words at the top of the list are the ones most associated with humorous, and as you go down the relatedness becomes more slight. By default, the words are sorted by relevance/relatedness, but you can also get the most common humorous terms by using the menu below, and there’s also the option to sort the words alphabetically so you can get humorous words starting with a particular letter. You can also filter the word list so it only shows words that are also related to another word of your choosing. So for example, you could enter «funny» and click «filter», and it’d give you words that are related to humorous and funny.

You can highlight the terms by the frequency with which they occur in the written English language using the menu below. The frequency data is extracted from the English Wikipedia corpus, and updated regularly. If you just care about the words’ direct semantic similarity to humorous, then there’s probably no need for this.

There are already a bunch of websites on the net that help you find synonyms for various words, but only a handful that help you find related, or even loosely associated words. So although you might see some synonyms of humorous in the list below, many of the words below will have other relationships with humorous — you could see a word with the exact opposite meaning in the word list, for example. So it’s the sort of list that would be useful for helping you build a humorous vocabulary list, or just a general humorous word list for whatever purpose, but it’s not necessarily going to be useful if you’re looking for words that mean the same thing as humorous (though it still might be handy for that).

If you’re looking for names related to humorous (e.g. business names, or pet names), this page might help you come up with ideas. The results below obviously aren’t all going to be applicable for the actual name of your pet/blog/startup/etc., but hopefully they get your mind working and help you see the links between various concepts. If your pet/blog/etc. has something to do with humorous, then it’s obviously a good idea to use concepts or words to do with humorous.

If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the list below, or if there’s some sort of bug and it’s not displaying humorous related words, please send me feedback using this page. Thanks for using the site — I hope it is useful to you! 🐏

That’s about all the humorous related words we’ve got! I hope this list of humorous terms was useful to you in some way or another. The words down here at the bottom of the list will be in some way associated with humorous, but perhaps tenuously (if you’ve currenly got it sorted by relevance, that is). If you have any feedback for the site, please share it here, but please note this is only a hobby project, so I may not be able to make regular updates to the site. Have a nice day! 🐁

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I made this tool after working on Related Words which is a very similar tool, except it uses a bunch of algorithms and multiple databases to find similar words to a search query. That project is closer to a thesaurus in the sense that it returns synonyms for a word (or short phrase) query, but it also returns many broadly related words that aren’t included in thesauri. So this project, Reverse Dictionary, is meant to go hand-in-hand with Related Words to act as a word-finding and brainstorming toolset. For those interested, I also developed Describing Words which helps you find adjectives and interesting descriptors for things (e.g. waves, sunsets, trees, etc.).

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