humor

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2. n. That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3. n. The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd. See Synonyms at wit¹.
4. n. One of the four fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, choler, and black bile, whose relative proportions were thought in ancient and medieval physiology to determine a person's disposition and general health.
5. n. Physiology A body fluid, such as blood, lymph, or bile.
6. n. Physiology Aqueous humor.
7. n. Physiology Vitreous humor.
8. n. A person's characteristic disposition or temperament: a boy of sullen humor.
9. n. An often temporary state of mind; a mood: I'm in no humor to argue.
10. n. A sudden, unanticipated whim. See Synonyms at mood¹.
11. n. Capricious or peculiar behavior.
12. v. To comply with the wishes or ideas of; indulge.
13. v. To adapt or accommodate oneself to. See Synonyms at pamper.
14. idiom. out of humor In a bad mood; irritable.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Moisture; an exhalation.
2. n. An animal fluid, whether natural or morbid; now, especially, any of the thinner bodily fluids, limpid, serous, or sanious, as the constituent fluids or semi-fluids of the eye, or the watery matter in some cutaneous eruptions. The four cardinal humors of ancient physicians were the blood, choler (yellow bile), phlegm, and melancholy (black bile), regarded by them as determining, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities and disposition. See temperament.
3. n. Hence One's special condition of mind or quality of feeling; peculiarity of disposition, permanent or temporary; mental state; mood: as, a surly humor; a strange humor.
4. n. Specifically— Disposition, especially a capricious disposition; freak; whim; vagary; oddness of mood or manners: in this sense very fashionable in the time of Shakspere.
5. n. A facetious or jocular turn of mind, as in conversation; the disposition to find, or the faculty of finding, ludicrous aspects or suggestions in common facts or notions.
6. n. In lit., witty, droll, or jocose imagination, conspicuous in thought and expression, and tending to excite amusement; that quality in composition which is characterized by the predominance of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous in the choice or treatment of a theme: distinguished from wit, which implies superior subtlety and finer thought. Humor in literature may be further distinguished by its humane and sympathetic quality, by force of which it is often found blending the pathetic with the ludicrous, and by the same stroke moving to tears and laughter, in this respect improving upon the pure and often cold intellectuality which is the essence of wit.
7. n. See the adjectives.
8. n. Fancy, whimsey, crotchet, fad.
9. n. and.
10. n. Wit, Humor (see wit); pleasantry, jocoseness, facetiousness, jocularity.
11. To comply with the humor, fancy, or disposition of; soothe by compliance; indulge; gratify.
12. To endeavor to comply with the peculiarities or exigencies of; adapt one's self to; suit or accommodate: as, to humor one's part or the piece.
13. Synonyms Indulge, etc. See gratify.
14. To give a slight direction or turn to (a fly, in fishing, or the like).

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable A mood, especially a bad mood; a temporary state of mind brought upon by an event; an abrupt illogical inclination or whim.
2. n. medicine Either of the two regions of liquid within the eyeball, the aqueous humour and vitreous humour.
3. n. A fluid or semi-fluid of the body.
4. v. transitive : To pacify by indulging.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.
2. n. (Med.) A vitiated or morbid animal fluid, such as often causes an eruption on the skin.
3. n. 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.
4. n. Changing and uncertain states of mind; caprices; freaks; vagaries; whims.
5. n. 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.
6. v. 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.
7. v. To help on by indulgence or compliant treatment; to soothe; to gratify; to please.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter
2. n. the quality of being funny
3. n. the liquid parts of the body
4. n. the trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous
5. n. (Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical state
6. v. put into a good mood
7. n. a characteristic (habitual or relatively temporary) state of feeling