HILARITY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hilarity mean? 

• HILARITY (noun)
  The noun HILARITY has 1 sense:

1. great merriment

  Familiarity information: HILARITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HILARITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Great merriment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

glee; gleefulness; hilarity; mirth; mirthfulness

Hypernyms ("hilarity" is a kind of...):

gaiety; merriment (a gay feeling)

Derivation:

hilarious (marked by or causing boisterous merriment or convulsive laughter)

 Context examples 

After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings, with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He slapped me on the shoulder with a sudden burst of hilarity.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of my father, but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came upon them for their hardness of heart.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

By midnight the hilarity had increased.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)