Laughter

Body genre: comedy and humour; effect: laughter
Illustration: poster for The Raven, a horror-comedy

Featured:

A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

Theory of laughter, A History of Derision, history of laughter

humour - comedy - ridicule - amusement - expression - emotion

A movement (usually involuntary) of the muscles of the face, particularly of the lips, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction, or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs.
Quotations
- The act of laughter, which is a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves. - Sir Thomas Browne
- Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sound produced by air so expelled.

Overview

Laughter is an expression or appearance of merriment or amusement. Laughter is a sound that can be heard.