laugher

From Middle English lawȝar, lawher(e); equivalent to laugh +‎ -er.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: läfʹə IPA^(key): /ˈlɑːfə/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) enPR: lăfʹə IPA^(key): /ˈlæfɚ/
• Rhymes: -æfə(ɹ), -ɑːfə(ɹ)

laugher (plural laughers)

1. One who laughs.
   • 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 251:

     Well then—if I must neither stir out of the gate nor look out at window, I will at least see what the inside of the house contains that may help to pass away one’s time—peradventure, I may light on that blue-eyed laugher in some corner or other.

   • 1862 July – 1863 August, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “At the Barber’s Shop”, in Romola. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1863, →OCLC, book III, page 309:

     He and his companions […] were exchanging jokes with that sort of ostentatious laughter which implies a desire to prove that the laugher is not mortified though some people might suspect it.

   • 1992, Jib Fowles, Why Viewers Watch: A Reappraisal of Television's Effects, page 119:

     These are the people whose laughter you hear after the boffolas on shows that have been filmed without audiences. I don't suppose all these laughers are dead, but a lot of them must be by this time.

2. A game in which an opponent is defeated by a sizable margin; a blowout.
3. A variety of the domestic pigeon.

• laugh
• laughingly
• laughter