laughing

«laughing» in Mova's school dictionary: making happy sounds with your voice and face when… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb form (laugh, laughs, laughed, laughing); adjective (laughing); noun (laughing, laughter)

meaning for a pupil

1) Laughing means making happy sounds with your voice and face when something is funny. tree →

2) Laughing at someone means making fun of them unkindly. tree →

3) Laughing with someone means sharing the fun together. tree →

sense in the lessons

In feelings lessons, laughing is good for you and helps people feel close; but laughing at someone's mistake or looks is unkind, while laughing with friends is kind. In stories, characters burst out laughing or can't stop laughing. In nature, the kookaburra in Australia is called a laughing bird, and hyenas seem to laugh. Phrases: burst out laughing, laughing at, laughing with, laughing your head off, no laughing matter.

examples

• The children were laughing at the clown. tree →
• We couldn't stop laughing at the joke. tree →
• Stop laughing at him; it isn't kind. tree →
• She was laughing so hard she cried. tree →
• He burst out laughing when the dog stole the sausage. tree →
• Being lost is no laughing matter. tree →
• The kookaburra sounds like it's laughing. tree →
• We were laughing with each other all evening. tree →
• “I am laughing at your lies.” tree →

note

Laugh is regular: laughed, laughing. The gh is said like f: «LAF-ing». The noun is laughter (or a laugh). «Laughing at» can be unkind; «laughing with» is shared fun.

In the corpora

• Grief gets gentler over months and years; playing and laughing during that time does not mean you have forgotten the person.
• Laughing kindly with someone who tripped is fine; laughing at them makes their embarrassment worse.
• The Rat is laughing as he pushes him to shore with the oars under his arms.
• But Badger explains: Toad has to live here and be respected, not be a laughing-stock for the weasels.
• Kun?» «Payah kun,» says the Magician, laughing, and the tiny crab scuttles away.

Trees and pragmatics

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