Word encounter
agelastic (adj. and n.) or agelast (n.)
"One who never laughs," "never laughing" (OED)
Marked as obsolete, but found in quite delightful current use in Jessica Milner Davis's "Farce," in which she defines slapstick as "physical but stylized beatings and the humiliation of agelastic targets" (3).
Wouldn't Agelast be a wonderful name for a somewhat Dickensian character (with a pun on a sort of unsmiling agedness or dusty agelessness)? What would it do to a child to be named "Agelast"?
"One who never laughs," "never laughing" (OED)
Marked as obsolete, but found in quite delightful current use in Jessica Milner Davis's "Farce," in which she defines slapstick as "physical but stylized beatings and the humiliation of agelastic targets" (3).
Wouldn't Agelast be a wonderful name for a somewhat Dickensian character (with a pun on a sort of unsmiling agedness or dusty agelessness)? What would it do to a child to be named "Agelast"?