mirth
/mɜɹθ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.62 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness."
- "To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations."
- "And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that, though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth."
- "All these acquaintances he observed with difficulty concealing their mirth at something; the same mirth that he had perceived in the lawyer's eyes, and just now in the eyes of this groom."
- "She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher."
- "Their eyes met and they began to laugh. They laughed as children do when they cannot contain themselves, and can not explain the cause of their mirth to grown people, but share it perfectly together."
Etymology
From Middle English merth, myrthe, murhthe, from Old English myrgþ (“mirth, joy”), from Proto-West Germanic *murgiþu (“briefness, brevity”); equivalent to merry + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with Middle Dutch merchte (“pleasure, joy, delight”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: merth, myrgþ, *murgīþu
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mɜɹθ/
- British English: /mɜːθ/