1. Home
2. Idioms
3. gallows humour

gallows humour

---

---

gallows humour

  (British & Australian) also gallows humor (American & Australian)

humour that makes unpleasant things, such as death, seem funny

Usage notes: The gallows are a wooden frame used in the past for killing criminals by hanging them from a rope tied around their neck.

Many of the patients I worked with knew they were dying. There was a lot of gallows humour.

See also: humour