Download

How To Use Humour In A Sentence

  • Written with charm and humour, this is a touching, absorbing oddity of a book about love, grief, avarice and generosity.
  • I leaned a minute against a Corinthian column; I lamented that no pontiff arrived with victims and aruspices, of whom I might inquire, what, in the name of birds and garbage, put me so terribly out of humour! for you must know I was very near being disappointed, and began to think Piranesi and Paolo Panini had been a great deal too colossal in their view of this venerable structure. Dreams Waking Thoughts and Incidents
  • Yet marital relations were a constant theme of controversy, discussion, humour and, of course, song.
  • They loved his humour, his way of pronouncing foreign names, his indomitable courage. The Search for Justice - a history of Britain and the British people Volume III
  • You, young man,” she proceeded, addressing Roland Graeme, and at once softening the ironical sharpness of her manner into good-humoured raillery, “you, who are all our male attendance, from our Lord High Chamberlain down to our least galopin, follow us to prepare our court.” The Abbot
Enhance Your English Writing Skills
Fix common errors and boost your confidence in every sentence.
Get started
for free
Enhance Your English Writing Skills
  • He was sharply perceptive and had an earthy, sly humour which put an edge on his nice irony.
  • What's more, the narrative has pace and is injected with witty dialogue and humour.
  • The film is not attempting poignant comments on reality - it aims at grace and good humour.
  • Here he achieved that most difficult of tasks, humour and fun in dance.
  • It suggests a sense of humour, a willingness to make an effort, an aspiration towards the airy, healthy, beardless Scandinavian lifestyle.
  • The main thing I'd define myself as is as a humourist, and there's so many jokes to be made that haven't been made, because we haven't talked about this stuff, you know? The Saturday interview: Caitlin Moran
  • He had a gentle, kindly manner, twinkling eyes and quick smile, a keen sense of humour and a penetrating wit.
  • The Brits, with their propensity for schoolboy humour and scatology, deal with the subject by uproarious laughter.
  • Her tale has a consciously youthful tone and storyline, combined with a sly humour.
  • Everybody admires him for his fine sense of humour.
  • There's a rich vein of humour too. Times, Sunday Times
  • Every mahout and kavadi (tribal elephant watcher) would be with the elephant to keep it in good humour, the Warden added.
  • But she also comes across as a humourless frump, needing constant cajoling from her husband to stay afloat.
  • He kissed and tousled the young vrouws; and, if they frowned and pouted, gave them a gold rosary, or a sparkling cross, to put them in good humour again.
  • We made the typical jokes about whether we would be there at the same time the next week - gallows humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • Humour and melancholy, sincerity and irony are as balanced as a health freak's diet.
  • But he always took such gibes with good humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • I see only those with a very short attention span and a cruel sense of humour finding it entertaining. Times, Sunday Times
  • I was a modest, good - humoured boy; it is Oxford that has made me insufferable.
  • Mr Kennet has a rather peculiar sense of humour.
  • He had enormous charm and a great sense of humour.
  • While serious in subject and sad in fact, the play is written with brio and excellent humour.
  • A man of good humour and a great sense of fun, he enjoyed popularity among his teaching colleagues and pupils, many of whom were present at the removal of remains and burial.
  • His skeletal appearance belies a mischievous sense of humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • Shepherd was of medium height and slightish build with a serious manner but a dry sense of humour.
  • But there is much satisfaction in seeing a modern classic performed with such deftness and humour, and recognising the universality of its underlying themes.
  • His sense of humour, always in evidence, made it impossible for him to seem pompous or self-important, and he never attempted to disguise his own fallibility as a human being.
  • It's wry humour that permeates the tale rather than bitterness.
  • I know you guys are expecting something in my usual strain of strange humour.
  • It contributed a repertory of immortal songs easily memorable by their combination of direct tunes and earthy good humour.
  • They both have a powerful sense of humour and an understated wit that makes you look very carefully at what's on the page in case you miss anything.
  • His sense of humour was a useful buffer when things were going badly for him.
  • Come celebrate with the young artists in attendance as they inject fresh colour, life, scent, spirit, humour and unselfconscious whimsy into our art scene.
  • He has a lively sense of humour and appears naturally confident.
  • It was my role - apparently - to decode the story, suggest its origins, play down its significance and generally nanny him into a better humour.
  • But he had a mild, good-humoured, articulate side, verging on the academic, abjuring the sensational.
  • Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call’d the deer the princess killed, a pricket. Act IV. Scene II. Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • This is light-hearted, but intelligent humour.
  • The Doctor's harrowing account of the orthopaedic centres for polio and landmine victims was punctuated with the earthy humour of the people he deals with.
  • The beams of wit, the lively sallies of humour, and the interchange of good fellowship, eradiated the glass in its circulation, and doubly enhanced its contents; and in amusements so truly congenial with the disposition of the Hon. Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. Or, The Rambles And Adventures Of Bob Tallyho, Esq., And His Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall, Through The Metropolis; Exhibiting A Living Picture Of Fashionable Characters, Manners, And Amusements In High And Low Life
  • I found the violent slapstick humour cruel and unfunny.
  • The only surprise in all the puerile humour is just how sour the film's view of marriage is. Times, Sunday Times
  • Edith's sense of humour, her warmth and her refusal to be resentful make her a survivor in the true sense of the word.
  • That sense of humour has helped the group survive many an erroneous rumour.
  • Pre-wedding nerves can sometimes cause a groom to have a total sense of humour failure when a harmless little prank - shaving his eyebrows, say, or tattooing his cheeks - is played on him.
  • For the sake of schoolboy humour, each friend should receive two plums and one courgette. The Sun
  • Sense of humour is definitely what we need in this particular subject matter, and especially looking at that text.
  • Planetary characteristics are defined by these humoural temperaments where, as in nature, warmth and moisture promote health and vitality whilst cold and dryness are conducive to decay.
  • He is a gifted storyteller with a deadpan sense of humour and the book is a rollicking read. Times, Sunday Times
  • Though not slapstick or of the knee-slapping variety, Hamer is droll and often wickedly subtle in his deadly strain of humour.
  • Our mean-minded monarchists really are a bunch of humourless humbugs.
  • Many of them write humour because they see it as the one way of entering a masculinist preserve.
  • Many of the performers had entertained in the services, and their humour was of a different kind from civilian humour. CELEBRATING SECOMBE: A Tribute to Sir Harry Secombe
  • He took my advice in good humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • On the contrary, they ask us to face them head on with courage, humour and fortitude. Times, Sunday Times
  • He was a little gentleman, very polite and kind but he also had a cheeky sense of humour. The Sun
  • She is frisky and good humoured like a bouncy Labrador, gushing with anecdotes punctuated by a laugh, which is a cross between a joyous cackle and a happy crow.
  • And all this is recounted with a wry, sly humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • Bursting with frantic energy, wry humour and a multitude of voices, it might be best described as a romantic comedy-thriller, but even this fails to capture its sparkling originality.
  • There is, of course, more to it than its knockabout surface humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • She's got a mischievous sense of humour and a twinkle in her eye. The Sun
  • He is not an experienced debater, given in the past to flourishes of synthetic rage at Nationalists rather than the humour and put-down his elevated status requires.
  • Despite the spectacular opening and frequent nods to the original movie, the goofy humour of earlier offerings is sadly absent. The Sun
  • I can picture him now, often speaking without a note, with humour, incisive argument and magisterial disdain for the opposing view, swatting away anyone ill-judged enough to make a hostile intervention.
  • He gives illustrations of some neolithic axes and hammers, and then proceeds to state that in the opinion of philosophers they are generated in the sky by a fulgureous exhalation (whatever that may look like) conglobed in a cloud by a circumfixed humour, and baked hard, as it were, by intense heat. Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
  • According to humoral theory, the body comprised of the four humours blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy; and pathological conditions are the result of humoral abnormalities.
  • His flashes of light-hearted humour were commonly tinged with an awesome critical irony.
  • There was a touch of irony/humour in her voice.
  • They proved that to have a good sense of humour is definitely a recipe for success, especially with the younger crowd.
  • Vehicles break down, complaints come in, work needs to be rescheduled, but it is all done with irrepressible good humour and charm.
  • Black it certainly is; funny it certainly is, but, in reality, it is more of a symposium of anarchic, iconoclastic humour than a comedy in the pure sense of the word.
  • His dialogue is sharp and witty, laced with mordant humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • His sense of humour was his only saving grace.
  • I love the director's over-the-top sense of humour, especially his trademarked vision of the media of the future.
  • But Statham's delivery is strictly grim and stoic, utterly without humour.
  • The Welsh, I would say, have an often overlooked but damned fine line in dry humour, as is often the case with people from inclement climates, and maybe this is honed even more when you spend so much of your life immersed in that inclemency.
  • A surreal, oddly sinister classic, this expertly mixes a cruel and satiric sense of humour with wide-eyed wonder.
  • Presented by a large cast of colourful characters, The Quare Fellow paints a portrait of life inside an Irish prison, in which songs, humour and compassion evoke the banter between inmates and wardens.
  • He had a terrific sense of humour and could be very amusing.
  • There is humour, irony and satire. Times, Sunday Times
  • Military France is everywhere full of sour inflammatory humour, which exhales itself fuliginously, this way or that: a whole continent of smoking flax; which, blown on here or there by any angry wind, might so easily start into a blaze, into a continent of fire! The French Revolution
  • And indeed he is in possession of a pawky sense of humour.
  • While during the day it is very relaxing, at night it is jovial and good humoured.
  • Pity that their dry northern humour seems a little jaded. The Sun
  • The carrying off of the spear and the cruse was a couch of almost humour, and it, with the ironical taunt flung across the valley to Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII
  • The most expeditious way to get through the evening is by humouring me. MURDER IN E MINOR
  • I have no sympathy whatever with the idea that a humourist ought to be a lugubrious person with a face stamped with melancholy. My Discovery of England
  • In a documentary set on Bodmin Moor the humour was unintentional and painful. Times, Sunday Times
  • That sounds heavy: in fact, this play abounds in mischievous gallows humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • Behind the humour, however, one finds a novel of great merit and depth, constructed in the most poetic language, and not at all about fish.
  • He has a sense of humour plus tolerance and patience.
  • The demand for his personal appearances in cabaret and after dinner speeches is testimony to his brilliant wit, and his ability to develop right good humour and side-splitting laughter.
  • Doris, her elegant mother, had Sue's same wicked sense of humour.
  • Here at last we have all the drama, tragedy, pathos and humour those courtroom appearances produced.
  • The scenes are acted with sledgehammer humour, unworthy of Williamson's usually sleek style.
  • He was widely held in high esteem for his witty sense of humour.
  • The writer tapped into a rich vein of humour in the play.
  • What profundity lightly carried, and what humour and humanity! The Times Literary Supplement
  • I'm a thrice damned fool - lucky he has a well developed sense of humour eh?
  • But at Allah Made Me Funny's show in London only a few atheists and a lone Jew identified themselves in response to a good-humoured request from the stage.
  • He has an amazing and albeit sometimes wicked sense of humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • The city's souvenir T-shirt shops are also thriving on gallows humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • The movie isn't without its flaws, however, as some of the humour is rather juvenile, and some just plain stupid.
  • The sanguine humour is the principal humour of the blood which embodies the other three humours: the choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic within it.
  • It is a story of resistance, sly humour and hope. Times, Sunday Times
  • It wasn't observational humour, it was just outrageous. Times, Sunday Times
  • Johnson's film also contains at least one decent surprise, a nice line in black humour, and looks very stylish throughout, while being laden with religious imagery - referring to the crucifixion and the stigmata on several occasions.
  • No, no, avaunt -- I'll not be slabbered and kissed now -- I'm not i 'th' humour. The Old Bachelor: a Comedy
  • On his final night out, gallows humour reigned supreme. The Sun
  • He was always genial, with the parochialism and humour of his north-eastern background.
  • His work is unusually accessible and leavened with kindly humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • This is a film full of humour.
  • She has an infectious humour, a hearty laugh and can fill a room with her cheerful personality.
  • He has pathos without sentimentality, humour without guile and infinite sympathy. Times, Sunday Times
  • Gally, who sets up Theophrastus as his model, apparently fails to realize that a "humourist" like Sir Roger verges on individuality. A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725)
  • I feel like I'm the only girl on the boy's team and they're humouring me.
  • The last decade has seen a revolution in healthcare as more and more hospitals become convinced of the therapeutic power of humour.
  • Hall seems to improve with age and the offbeat humour here is low-key and likeable. Times, Sunday Times
  • But it is impossible by words to convey any idea of the effect of his conversation, and of the impression made by so much philosophy, gaiety and humour, accompanied by a manner at once so animated and simple.
  • Alan in high good humour at the furthering of his schemes, and I in bitter dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated like a child. Kidnapped: The Adventures of David Balfour
  • I humoured him, not attempting to put his illusions straight.
  • He has a good sense of humour.
  • Her intellectual curiosity was matched by her sense of humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • Perhaps Selwyn might have been called a "wag" -- a name given to men who were more enterprising than successful in their humour, and which referred originally to mere ludicrous motion. History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2)
  • The female incapable of intellectual purpose, governed by her whims and humours, is a misogynistic cliche not only of the time, but very much of his writings.
  • His life had run so smoothly that he was habitually inflexible, and perhaps rather humourless. My Darling Heriott: Henrietta Luxborough, Poetic Gardener and Irrepressible Exile
  • I get my sarcastic sense of humour from her. The Sun
  • With its bad language and schoolboy humour, Alfred Jarry's first and most influential play is the story of Mum and Dad Ubu, two gloriously evil megalomaniacs, who spur each other on to overthrow the regime.
  • The best way to approach them therefore is to leap directly into light, good-humoured conversation and make them laugh.
  • More recently, there has been interest in comics, humour, and folktales.
  • He handled dissent with humour and reasoned argument. Times, Sunday Times
  • Through all the hardship, Dunne's humour and candour keeps the book bowling along.
  • A sociable man with a good sense of humour was top of the list. The Sun
  • It was efficient, kind, modest and done with immense good humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • You never talked to him for long without realising he had a great sense of humour with a fund of tales to tell.
  • His droll humour and discerning eye excite the whole. Times, Sunday Times
  • The earthy humour is backed up by an impressively slick game. Times, Sunday Times
  • Yet despite a third-act plunge into compromised stodge (which is unsurprising considering its star names), there's some surprisingly edgy humour at work in this darker-than-expected comedy from German-born writer-director Derrick Borte. Mark Kermode's DVD round-up
  • Irony is of signal importance in English humour, in everything from radio comedy to literature.
  • Tucker's writings are diffuse and unmethodical, but marked by humour and quaint illustration and comment.
  • If we've come to the point where the banterers are having to explain and apologise for their jokes, then presumably the joy of the thing – the roaring of rape humour across a crowded internet, that beery, leery, Friday-night amour – has been lost? The joke's on them
  • Humourless and heavy-hearted love only produces hate as its offspring.
  • A very lucid explanation certainly, but rendered a little difficult of apprehension by the effort necessary for realising in a mental picture the conglobation of a fulgureous exhalation by a circumfixed humour. Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
  • The film is only funny if you appreciate French humour .
  • Here he personifies folk cunning, good humour and common sense.
  • He had a wry sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye. Times, Sunday Times
  • The people around let out a pitiful laugh at my bungled attempt at humour with a cringing look in their eyes.
  • Never mind, the author has a very dry and wicked sense of humour; Laurie Thompson (also translator ofseveral of Henning Mankell's books) has done an excellent job of translating not only the text butalso the jokes. Sunday Salon: Crime Fest edition
  • These days whole web sites are devoted to this kind of black humour.
  • But underneath the searing humour runs a strain of deep discontent at the lives of the dispossessed in society.
  • But the presence of his young son brought welcome vitality to the household of the Princess, known for her vivacious character and wicked sense of humour.
  • I always tried to avert arguments and inject humour. The Sun
  • His feeble attempts to rid himself of his passion for her had been more to humour his scourged pride than to release him from subjection. DANSVILLE
  • His dialogue is sharp and witty, laced with mordant humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • At the very least. mavis good review! it actually makes me want to watch it. i thought Bruno would mainly be about cheap humour, and less funny as compared to Borat. thanks for the heads up! Bruno Movie Review | /Film
  • And he has a sly sense of humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • I became a raconteur, the wittiest humourist, sensitive and worshipping. THE TARTAN RINGERS
  • This is what the philosopher and aesthetician had in mind when he spoke of humour as a form of common sense.
  • Told in mockumentary style, the film is fast and furious and the humour's down and dirty. The Sun
  • We both have a good sense of humour and we try to find humour in everything so I guess that comes out in the music.
  • Shared humanity isn't only the stuff of bittersweet humour, though. Times, Sunday Times
  • In other words, humour should be neither gratuitous nor excessive, but judicious.
  • No one can possibly come close to him for entertainment, humour or wonderful sarcasm. The Sun
  • My associate quickly became a friend as he tried consoling me with humour and sympathy.
  • We need not argue at length that philosophy is serious, but this does not mean that it needs to be solemn or humourless.
  • Anger and frustration at the inanity of America's political culture underscore the best humour here.
  • Deadly serious - or gallows humour? Times, Sunday Times
  • The cartoons inject humour, while the writing is crystal-clear and direct - it never relies on silly jokes and is never patronising.
  • Its gentle humour and stunning cinematography knock other comedy series into the long grass. Times, Sunday Times
  • The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros and gluten to maintain it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by which means chylus is excluded. Anatomy of Melancholy
  • Hysteria was at one time thought to be caused by the womb moving upwards due to the influence of malign humours.
  • For all the gallows humour, I know which one felt like the future. Times, Sunday Times
  • Hadji Baba, had described the manners and vices of the Eastern nations, not only with fidelity, but with the humour of Le Sage and the ludicrous power of Fielding himself, one who was a perfect stranger to the subject must necessarily produce an unfavourable contrast. The Talisman
  • Sean 1 is the older, experienced mover, with a dry sense of humour, a smoking habit, probably resigned to being a removalist for most of his working life, and apparently loving it.
  • There is in these stories a curious mixture of humour, insight and pathos, with here and there a dash of grimness and a sprinkling of that charming irrelevancy which is of the essence of true humour. Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, August 29, 1891
  • Would her sparkle have brightened my days, her wit and humour gladdened my heart?
  • Her popularity can be traced to her exceptional good humour. The Sun
  • A realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are full of merry humour. Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance
  • But there are records of Antony which represent him as a far more genial and human personage; full of a knowledge of human nature, and of a tenderness and sympathy, which account for his undoubted power over the minds of men; and showing, too, at times, a certain covert and "pawky" humour which puts us in mind, as does the humour of many of the Egyptian hermits, of the old-fashioned Scotch. The Hermits
  • Also working against the timber framed houses was the fact that I was in a 9am humour, not much of a morning person - me.
  • More recently, there has been interest in comics, humour, and folktales.
  • It was done in the sense of mischievous good humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • He's got a highly developed sense of humour.
  • Full of its characteristic humour and human drama, the series takes the gang from Middlesbrough to Arizona.
  • It was done in the sense of mischievous good humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • People destroyed all remaining vestiges of humour.
  • She says: 'He was warm and funny with a wicked sense of humour and he truly seemed wise beyond his years. The Sun
  • The pennillion were sung by one voice to the harp, and followed a quaint air which was not only interesting, but owing to its peculiarity, it set forth in a striking manner the humour of the verse. The Poetry of Wales
  • They were just great guys with such a wicked sense of humour. Times, Sunday Times
  • The butt of his humour is a group so ostentatiously righteous that few commentating on the Booker mentioned Jacobson's attack. Howard Jacobson offers a contrary voice in the arts
  • He also admits he might be running out of countries since his brand of humour touches only ‘a very superficial outer layer’ of each place.
  • He lists his ideal mate as needing to be smart, intelligent, possessing a sense of humour and a well toned body.
  • The narrative that emerged from the cobwebs was a remarkably coherent one, a detailed panorama of Victorian and Edwardian family life, full of humour and bathos as well as drama, passion and tragedy. Hancox: All under one roof
  • His kindly humour, his great generosity, his reticence about his own achievements, and his sense of fairness pervaded his whole life.
  • It would not be an exaggeration to say I am in some awe of this lady; she is facing a difficult time in her life with courage, common sense and humour.

Report a problem

Please indicate a type of error

Additional information (optional):