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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chortle.

A joyful, somewhat muffled laugh, rather like a snorting chuckle.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈt͡ʃɔɹtəl/General-American[ˈt͡ʃɔɹɾɫ̩]General-American
  1. A joyful, somewhat muffled laugh, rather like a snorting chuckle.

    He frequently interrupted himself with chortles while he told us his favorite joke.
  2. A similar sounding vocalisation of various birds.

Where this word comes from

Perhaps a blend of chuckle + snort. Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, completed in 1855 but only introduced to the public in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass.

verb/ˈt͡ʃɔɹtəl/General-American[ˈt͡ʃɔɹɾɫ̩]General-American
  1. To laugh with a chortle or chortles.

    intransitive
    The old fellow chortled as he recalled his youthful adventures.
Where this word comes from

Perhaps a blend of chuckle + snort. Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, completed in 1855 but only introduced to the public in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.