chuckle

Etymology

It is probably formed from English chuck (“to cluck”) + -le, a frequentative,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} and the OED calls it echoic.^[8] Chuck is from Middle English chukken (“to make a clucking noise”),^[2][9][10] itself of imitative origin.^[9][2][11] Barnhart notes that the verb chuck, to laugh to oneself, and chuckle are both first recorded in Florio, so that chuck may be its immediate source; he also compares chokelen (“to make a clucking or warbling sound”).^[2] Hoad suggests that chokelyng (about 1400) may be an early form,^[6] and Weekley compares the obsolete checkle and cackle.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To laugh loudly or convulsively: 1598, in Florio's A Worlde of Wordes.^[8][2][9] The Middle English verb chukken is in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale (about 1390), of Chauntecleer clucking to his hens when he finds a grain.^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

The word at first meant hearty, even convulsive laughter, a sense obsolete after the early 19th century.^[8][6][5] From 1690, in Dryden, it was also used of a hen clucking or calling her chicks together,^[8][6] and Johnson (1755) gave that as its first sense, adding "to cocker; to fondle".^[13] By 1803 the meaning had shifted to laughing quietly or to oneself, with inward satisfaction.^[8][9][6] The noun followed the verb: 1743 in the OED, before 1754 in Barnhart, both in Fielding.^[8][2] Since 1866 the word has also been used of the gurgle of water poured from a bottle.^[8] In Derbyshire dialect it meant to scold or brawl, in Worcestershire to rattle, and in salt-making it was said of a boiling pan.^[14] In Australian slang it has meant to vomit.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – Middle English chukken, to cluck, in Chaucer.^[10][2]
• 1598 – to laugh vehemently, in Florio.^[8][2]
• 1690 – of a hen, to cluck; to call together with a cluck.^[8]
• 1743 – noun, an act of chuckling.^[8]
• 1774 – noun, the cluck of a hen or call of a bird to its young.^[8]
• 1803 – to laugh quietly or to oneself.^[8][9]
• 1820 – transitive, to utter with a chuckle.^[8]
• 1866 – of water gurgling out of a bottle.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To laugh quietly or to oneself: He chuckled at the cartoon in the paper.^[16][4][8]
2. Of a hen or other bird, to cluck.^[16][8]
3. To say something with a chuckle.^[8]
4. (obsolete, 1598–1826) To laugh loudly or convulsively.^[8][5]

Noun

1. A quiet or partly suppressed laugh: a chuckle of satisfaction.^[16][4][8]
2. The cluck of a hen, or the call of a bird to its young.^[8][5]

Word family

• chuckler
• chucklesome
• chucklingly

Related words

• chuck
• cackle

Usage notes

Chuckle as an adjective, big and clumsy (1721), is probably from chuck in the sense of a lump of wood, and survives in chucklehead, a stupid person.^[8][5][4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins