laughableness

English

Etymology

laughable +‎ -ness

Noun

laughableness (uncountable)

  1. The state or quality of being laughable; ludicrousness.
    • 1889, Alfred Emerson, “On the Conception of Low Comedy in Aristophanes”, in The American Journal of Philology, volume 10, number 3, page 276:
      We obtain a true perception of the laughableness of this sort of buffoonery.
    • 1989, Richard F. Moorton Jr., “Rites of Passage in Aristophanes' Frogs”, in The American Journal of Philology, volume 84, number 4, page 317:
      They encounter Empousa, the comic monster, who reminds us in spite of her laughableness of the dangerousness of the other.
    • 2003, Perez Zagorin, “Looking for Pieter Bruegel”, in Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 64, number 1, page 89:
      Two sayings from Seneca speak of the laughableness of man's ambitions on an earth scarred by the wars of so many nations.

References
  • Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
  • Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.
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