chortling

Pluralchortlings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of chortle.

   The audience kept chortling long after the comedian had moved on to the next joke.

   He hung up the phone, still chortling over his friend's terrible pun.

   Note

   As a participle it follows be in the progressive (the audience was chortling) and often takes over or at for whatever is funny: chortling over a pun, chortling at a rival's slip. As a gerund it names the laughing as an activity, and the same spelling also stands as a countable noun.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of letting out a chortle, a joyful, muffled laugh like a snorting chuckle.

   Amid the chortling of the old friends, nobody heard the doorbell.

   His smug chortlings at every mistake I made finally drove me out of the room.

   Similarchuckling, sniggering, snickering

   Note

   The noun counts, and its plural chortlings names separate bouts of laughter rather than one sound. A chortle is joyful at heart, but an adjective in front can sour it: Ann Gimpel's Earth's Requiem sets real laughter against "the bitter chortlings she'd taken to indulging in." Smug, bitter or gleeful tells the reader which kind of laugh is meant.

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