humorist

See also: Humorist

English

Alternative forms

• humourist

Etymology

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 […], volumes (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.]
   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in The Cuckoo in the Nest‎^[1]:

     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.

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

Coordinate terms

• comedian / comedienne
• comic
• clown
• jester

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 m or f
• German: Humorist (de) m, Humoristin (de) f
• Hungarian: humorista (hu)
• Italian: umorista (it) m or f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• 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)
• Spanish: humorista m or f
• Ukrainian: гумори́ст m (humorýst), гумори́стка f (humorýstka)
• Yiddish: הומאָריסט m (humorist)

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Romanian

Noun

humorist m (plural humoriști, feminine equivalent humoristă)

1. Alternative spelling of umorist.