black humor
noun
Simple meaning
A subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with subjects that are believed to be serious or controversial, such as death, divorce, drug abuse.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
blakyoomerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈblækjumɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with subjects that are believed to be serious or controversial, such as death, divorce, drug abuse, etc.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with subjects that are believed to be serious or controversial, such as death, divorce, drug abuse, etc.
Used this way, black humor is a reasonably familiar word carrying real weight of difficulty or hurt. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Strongly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Black humor is emotionally heavy: it suggests deep or lasting feeling, not a passing mood, so it can overstate a small reaction.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.