guffaw
noun, verb

- a loud burst of laughter, especially one that sounds coarse or unrestrained; to laugh in such a way.

- a loud or boisterous burst of laughter; to laugh loudly and boisterously.

- a crude and boisterous laugh; to laugh crudely and boisterously, or to express something in this way.

Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary 

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WORD ORIGIN

Guffaw is a relatively young word — at least on paper. It first appeared in Scottish English around 1720, probably as an imitative word capturing the actual sound of coarse laughter, and its verb form followed just a year later, in 1721.

The earliest recorded literary use appears in the work of Scottish poet Allan Ramsay, and Walter Scott later used it in "The Antiquary" (1816): a character is described as doing nothing but "laugh and greet, the skirl at the tail o' the guffa."

The word traces back to the older Scottish gawf — itself onomatopoeic, meaning a loud, noisy laugh. Imagine a big, happy Scotsman snorting "gawf, gawf, gawf" at the end of a joke, and you'll have the idea.

The Scottish dialect word guff also carried a sense of scoffing or blowing — suggesting the physical force of the sound, something expelled rather than merely expressed.

The word was adopted into standard English by the mid-19th century Dictionaries of the Scots Language, having travelled south from Scotland to take up permanent residence in the language — one of many gifts Scottish English has given the broader tongue.

The word belongs to a rich family of onomatopoeic laugh-words: cackle, chortle, snigger, titter, cachinnate — each describing a slightly different register of human amusement. Guffaw sits firmly at the loudest, least inhibited end of the scale.

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NO LAUGHING MATTER

For some deep thinkers, laughing is no laughing matter, and there’s been some rather serious research on the topic.

The Greek philosopher Herodotus categorised people who laugh into three groups:

- those who are overconfident
- those who are innocent
- those who are mad

Darwin believed laughter to be the release of excess nervous energy, whereas Schopenhauer, Kant, Bergson, Hegel, and Koestler associated laughter with the resolution of incongruity or paradox.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

be in stitches, be rolling in the aisles, belly laugh, boffola, break up, burst out laughing, bust a gut, cachinnate, cachinnation, cackle, chortle, chuckle, convulse with laughter, crack up, crow, cry laughing, cry with laughter, double up with laughter, erupt in laughter, fall about laughing, fall off one's chair laughing, giggle, giggling/laughing fit, GUFFAW, ha-ha, have the giggles, hee-haw, hoot, horselaugh, howl, in hysterics, kill yourself laughing, laugh, laugh one's head off, laugh out loud, laugh till you cry, laugh uproariously, laugh your head off, laughter, lose it laughing, lose oneself in laughter, mirth, nearly wet yourself, peal, roar, roar with laughter, roll around laughing, scream, shriek, snicker, snigger, snort, spit out one's drink, split your sides, titter, twitter, wet oneself laughing, whoop

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“The sound of GUFFAWS indicates that people are having a lot of fun!”

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