chuckle

«chuckle» in Mova's school dictionary: To laugh quietly, often with your mouth closed, because… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (chuckle, chuckles, chuckled, chuckling); noun (a chuckle, chuckles)

meaning for a pupil

1) To laugh quietly, often with your mouth closed, because something is amusing. tree →

2) A soft, quiet laugh. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories it tells the reader a character is gently amused, not roaring with laughter; it often fits a kind grandparent or a sly villain. In writing lessons, it is one of many laughing verbs: giggle, chuckle, chortle, snigger, cackle, guffaw. Phrase: «have a chuckle».

examples

• Grandpa chuckled at his own joke. tree →
• She gave a little chuckle as she read the comic. tree →
• The audience chuckled at the funny line. tree →
• «Very clever,» he chuckled. tree →
• We had a good chuckle about the muddy football match. tree →
• The sly fox chuckled to himself. tree →
• “Hah!” said Kaa with a chuckle, “he has friends everywhere, this manling. tree →

note

Regular verb: chuckled, chuckling (drop the e). Countable noun: a chuckle. Laughing words from soft to loud: chuckle, giggle, laugh, guffaw, roar. A «snigger» is an unkind laugh.

In the corpora

• The Gryphon chuckles: it's all her fancy, «they never executes nobody».
• Grandpa chuckled: «Well, it worked on your daddy.» Emma's uncle said Santa watched through the smoke alarm light.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «chuckle» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.