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  1. chortle love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A snorting, joyful laugh or chuckle.
  2. v. To utter a chortle or express with a chortle.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To exclaim exultingly, with a noisy chuckle: a vaguely suggestive word used in the first passage quoted, and since taken up by other writers in the sense defined.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A joyful, somewhat muffled laugh, rather like a snorting chuckle.
  2. v. intransitive To laugh with a chortle or chortles.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. Humorous A word coined by Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson), and usually explained as a combination of chuckle and snort.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a soft partly suppressed laugh
  2. v. laugh quietly or with restraint

Etymologies

  1. Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, perhaps as a blend of chuckle and snort. (Wiktionary)
  2. Blend of chuckle and snort. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. chuckle
  1. laugh

hypernyms (4)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. laugh
  1. laughter
  1. express mirth
  1. express joy

same context (24)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. yipping
  2. cackle
  3. wheeze
  4. snicker
  1. homonuclear
  2. ululation
  3. grandam
  4. whoop
  1. tittering
  2. yelp
  3. tetrafluoride
  4. whinny
  1. caw
  2. eldritch
  3. jeering
  4. hoot
  1. coulalakritous
  2. dimer
  3. guffaw
  4. dimers
  1. case!
  2. mewling
  3. fluting
  4. giggle

rhymes (3)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. immortal
  1. mortal
  1. portal

reverse dictionary (3)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. chortle
  1. hoo-ha
  1. portmanteau word

tags (3)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. laughter
  1. portmanteau
  1. ccvcccv

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Lists

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Comments

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  • ruzuzu Ha. Feb 10, 2013

  • bilby *snorckles* Feb 9, 2013

  • alexz 1. the definitions are open source, and ofthen archaic.
    2. looking up google books, we don't see chortle being used
    (I checked 1800 to 1822, and all the hits were OCR mismatches from scanning blurry books)
    http://goo.gl/0k2ZQ

    "CHORTLE verb popular To chuckle to laugh in one's sleeve to snort Introduced by Lewis Carrol in Through the Looking Glass See

    quot 1872 LEWIS CARROL Through Looking Glass i O frabjous day I Calloon Callay He CHORTLED in his joy

    1876 BESANT AMD RICK Golden Butterfly xxxii 242 It makes the cynic and the worldly minded man to chuckle and CHORTLE with an open joy

    1887 Athemrttm 3 Dec p 751 col i A means of exciting cynical CHORTLING 1888 Daily Nevis 10 Jan p 5 col 2 So may CHORTLE the Anthropophagi MI "


    Slang and its analogues past and present: A dictionary, historical ..., Volume 2
    By William Ernest Henley Page 103
    Feb 9, 2013

  • rkiddy Why does the etymology just say that it is invented by Lewis Carroll? Seems odd to leave that out. Feb 9, 2013

  • thadguidry You chortle whenever someone gets you laughing and chuckling with pig-like snorting sounds. Jul 28, 2010

  • dann A keen example of a portmanteau nonce word now used in common parlance, this Carrollism combines chuckle and snort into a single delightful morpheme. Jan 7, 2007

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‘chortle’ has been looked up 4978 times, loved by 16 people, added to 118 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 12.