humorist

See also: Humorist

English

Alternative forms

• humourist

Etymology

Etymology tree

English humor

Proto-Indo-European *-id-

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti

Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō

Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)

Proto-Hellenic *-tās

Ancient Greek -τής (-tḗs)

Ancient Greek -ῐστής (-ĭstḗs)bor.

Latin -istader.

Old French -istebor.

Middle English -ist

English -ist

English humorist

From humor + -ist.

Noun

humorist (plural humorists)

1. (medicine, now rare, historical) Someone who believes that health and temperament are determined by bodily humours; a humoralist. [from 16th c.]
2. (obsolete) Someone subject to whims or fancies; an eccentric. [16th–19th c.]
   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

     She and the duke used to rally me upon my fondness for lord W—m, who was a sort of an humourist, and apt to be in a pet, in which case he would leave the company, and go to bed by seven o'clock in the evening.

   • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 175:

     I called on him and found him a contemporary of Beauclerk and Langton at Trinity College, Oxford, and a man of reading and animation, but a kind of humourist.

3. A humorous or witty person, especially someone skilled in humorous writing or performance. [from 17th c.]
   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia's mother was not a humourist.

   • 2007 January 18, Richard Severo, “Art Buchwald, 81, Columnist and Humorist Who Delighted in the Absurd”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Art Buchwald, who satirized the follies of the rich, the famous and the powerful for half a century as the most widely read newspaper humorist of his time, died Wednesday night in Washington.

   • 2010 December 24, Neil Genzlinger, “What’s So Funny?”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     But when it comes to conveying what made these people funny, what impact they had in their day and, especially, what debt they are owed by present-day humorists, Johnson doesn’t put much meat on the old bones.

4. One who studies or portrays the humours of people.

Coordinate terms

• comedian / comedienne
• comic
• clown
• jester

Derived terms

• humoristic

Translations

writer of humor

• Belarusian: гумары́ст m (humarýst), гумары́стка f (humarýstka)
• Bulgarian: хумори́ст m (humoríst)
• Catalan: humorista m or f
• French: humoriste (fr) m or f
• Galician: humorista (gl) m or f
• German: Humorist (de) m, Humoristin (de) f
• Hungarian: humorista (hu)
• Italian: umorista (it) m or f
• Latvian: humorists m, humoriste f
• Portuguese: humorista (pt) m or f
• Romanian: umorist (ro) m, umoristă (ro) f
• Russian: юмори́ст (ru) m (jumoríst), юмори́стка (ru) f (jumorístka)
• Southern Altai: сӱӱнер кылыкту кижи (süüner kïlïktu kiži)
• Spanish: humorista m or f
• Ukrainian: гумори́ст m (humorýst), гумори́стка f (humorýstka)
• Yiddish: הומאָריסט m (humorist)

Romanian

Noun

humorist m (plural humoriști, feminine equivalent humoristă)

1. alternative spelling of umorist