agelast
- A person who never laughs or who has no sense of humor.
In a sentence
- The comedian found it unnerving to perform for the stone-faced critic, a notorious agelast who reviewed shows with clinical detachment.
- Milan Kundera warned that agelasts, those who cannot laugh, are often the most dangerous ideologues.
Usage note. Agelast is a rare, literary word used primarily in philosophical or critical writing; calling someone an agelast in everyday speech may require explanation, but it is more precise than 'killjoy,' which implies active dampening of others' fun.
Where it comes from
English agelast · entered English 20th c.
From Greek 'agelastos,' meaning 'not laughing,' formed from the prefix 'a-' (not) and 'gelan' (to laugh). The term was used in antiquity—notably applied to Crassus, who reportedly never laughed—and was revived in modern English literary and critical usage, notably by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' (1979).