guffaw

US /ɡəˈfɔ/ UK /ɡəˈfɔː/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a loud, hearty burst of laughter

His joke drew a guffaw from the whole table.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a loud, hearty burst of... laugh cackle roar chortle hoot bellow

Etymology

Of imitative (echoic) origin, first recorded in Scots in the early 18th century, representing the sound of a loud, coarse laugh.

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# guffaw

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ɡəˈfɔ/
**IPA (UK):** /ɡəˈfɔː/

## Meanings
1. a loud, hearty burst of laughter

## Examples
- His joke drew a guffaw from the whole table.

## Synonyms
- laugh
- cackle
- roar
- chortle
- hoot
- bellow

## Etymology
Of imitative (echoic) origin, first recorded in Scots in the early 18th century, representing the sound of a loud, coarse laugh.

## AI Etymology
guffaw is of imitative (echoic) origin, first recorded in Scots in the early 18th century, representing the sound of a loud, coarse laugh. The history explains the modern form through the named earlier word or formation, without requiring a separate speculative ancestry. The etymology remains cautious where the history is cautious: comparisons, echoic formation, or disputed derivation do not make the ancestry more definite than the forms actually named. In present English, the noun sense is "a loud, hearty burst of laughter", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. Its semantic neighborhood includes laugh, cackle, roar, and chortle, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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