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humour |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Legal, Idioms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.03 sec. |
humour(Latin; “fluid”) In early Western physiological theory, one of the four body fluids thought to determine a person's temperament and features. As hypothesized by Galen, the four cardinal humours were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). The variant mixture of these humours in each person determined his “complexion” or temperament and his mental and physical qualities. The ideal person had the perfectly proportioned mixture of the four fluids; a disproportionate amount of one humour created a personality dominated by one set of related emotions (e.g., a choleric man was easily angered, proud, ambitious, and vengeful). humour (US), humor 1. any of various fluids in the body, esp the aqueous humour and vitreous humour 2. Archaic any of the four bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, choler or yellow bile, melancholy or black bile) formerly thought to determine emotional and physical disposition
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Starsky is more humorlessly obsessive, hair-trigger violent and sensitive about his late mother's reputation as a better cop; Hutch has actual criminal tendencies to complement his laid-back approach to law enforcement. I've always loved this trolley, once so humorlessly championed by October. And there is also a deep and, I suspect, honest desire to amuse the bourgeois soul (remember, she is from Germany, where amusement is sometimes at a premium), even if she has to do it with gentle shocks and humorlessly momentous incongruity. |
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