giggle

verbnounattested in dialogue

//ˈɡɪɡl̩//

To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner.

verb

1
To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner.
The jokes had them giggling like little girls all evening.
I couldn't resist to giggle a little tee hee.

Etymology

Early 16th century, probably of imitative origin. Or, perhaps a frequentative based on dialectal English gig (“to creak”), from Middle English gigen (“to make a creaking sound”) + -le; or perhaps of Dutch or Low German origin: compare Saterland Frisian güüchelje (“to giggle”), West Frisian giechelje (“to giggle”), Dutch giechelen (“to giggle”), German Low German giecheln (“to giggle”), dialectal German giggln, gigglen (“to giggle”), German gickeln (“to giggle”). All of these words are likely onomatopoeic as well. Also compare Alemannic German Guege (“fiddle”).

noun

1
A high-pitched, silly laugh.
My audience to this not-too-easy operation was a small group of Scottish school lasses, who seemed (perhaps naturally) to find the proceedings somewhat mysterious, but at any rate amusing. I wished they would go away, but they didn't, so I had to get on with the job to the accompaniment of a background of giggles!
2
informalFun; an amusing episode.
We put itching powder down his shirt for giggles.
The women thought it would be quite a giggle to have a strippergram at the bride's hen party.
For my first English breakfast I had kippers and pink champagne - what a combination, still it was a bit of a giggle and I know I've really arrived.

Forms

plural: giggles
past tense: giggled
past participle: giggled
present participle: giggling
third person singular: giggles

gifted · Endowed with special, in particular intellectual, abilities.gig · Originally (music), a performing engagement by a musician or…gigantic · Very large.

giggle · To laugh gently in a playful, nervous, or affected manner.

giggles · An attack of uncontrolled giggling.giggling · The act of producing giggles; high-pitched laughter Gigi · A female given name from French.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.