[f. LAUGH v. + -ING2.] That laughs.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 7366. In visage es he bright and clere, In red of heu, o laghand chere.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 988. Þus wyth laȝande lotez þe lorde hit tayt makez.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, II. 34. [He] schawyt him, with lauchand cher, The Endentur.
c. 1532. Du Wes, Introd. Fr., in Palsgr., 922. A gyrle havyng laughyng eyes.
1557. Tottel’s Misc. (Arb.), 257. Wo shall yeld thee frendes in laughing wealth to loue.
c. 1590. Manifolde Enormities, in Chetham Misc., IV. The Scornefull laffinge Countenance of other som.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 58, ¶ 2. A Man would be apt to think in this laughing Town, that [etc.].
1725. Pope, Odyss., IX. 10. O’er the foaming bowl the laughing wine.
1761. Churchill, Night, Poems I. 90. Night’s laughing hours unheeded slip away.
1781. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. (1791), 5. And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, xlix. A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, III. iii. (1872), 183. A brisk laughing sea … made a pleasant outlook.
1885. J. Payn, Talk of Town, I. 75. Maggie held up her finger reprovingly, but her laughing eyes belied the gesture.
b. In the names of animals, so called from their cry or aspect: laughing-bird dial., the green woodpecker (Gecinus viridis); laughing-crow, a name for various Asiatic birds; by some writers used as = laughing-thrush; laughing-goose, the white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons); laughing-owl (see quot.); laughing-thrush, a name given to certain Asiatic birds (see quots.). See also GULL sb.1, HYENA, JACKASS.
1862. Wood, Nat. Hist., II. 345. The *Laughing Crow of India (Garrulax leucolophus).
1879. Rossiter, Dict. Sci. Terms, s.v., Laughing Crow, Cinclosoma erythrocephalus, a bird belonging to Merulidæ.
1772. Forster, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 415. The *laughing goose is of the size of the Canada or small grey goose.
1830. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 13. Bagged 3 of the white-fronted laughing geese.
1873. W. L. Buller, Birds N. Zealand, 21. Sceloglaux albifacies (*Laughing Owl).
1859–62. Sir J. Richardson, etc. Mus. Nat. Hist. (1868), I. 331. The *Laughing Thrush (Pterocyclus cachinnaus) … is especially abundant in the thick woods which clothe the Neilgherries.
1879. Rossiter, Dict. Sci. Terms, s.v., Laughing Thrush, Trochaloptera phœniceum.
1880. A. R. Wallace, Isl. Life, iii. 44. The fine laughing-thrushes, forming the genus Garrulax.
Hence Laughingly adv., in a laughing manner.
1563–83. Foxe, A. & M., II. 1524/1. For (sayth he laughingly) his Chapleine gaue him counsel not to strike me with his Crosierstaffe, for that I would strike agayne.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 112. Laughingly he taunted them.
1874. Green, Short Hist., ix. § 3. 617. Charles laughingly bid him set all fear aside.
1894. Fenn, In Alpine Valley, II. 139. To take troubles laughingly.
