humourlesshumorlessadj.

1664 C. Jelinger New Way of Dying 23 in Heaven won by Violence (1665) The radical humour being by heat dryed up and exhausted, like Oyl in a Lamp, which also thereupon goes out, and is extinguished, so in the other. Hence it is that the Grecians have called the dead ἀλίβαντας, because they are humourless.

1671 J. Eachard Some Observ. Answer to Grounds Contempt of Clergy 195 He would have..counted himself as great a Wit..; and have utterly despis'd all the starch'd humourless Blackcoats for six weeks after.

1841 Spectator 14 Aug. 783/1 The worse than weariness which the humourless ribaldry caused us to feel.

1875 N. Amer. Rev. 120 279 One of these humorless sublime utopias.

1940 H. Bolitho Amer. Expects 2 The stewards stood in stiff, humourless attitudes, and they neither smiled or talked.

1977 Rolling Stone 30 June 73/2 We talk about being Capricorns and being pigeonholed in all the astrology books as humorless.

2006 R. Everett Red Carpets & Other Banana Skins xxxviii. 299 It was a sickly script about a nasty humourless woman.

1903 Cent. Path 19 Apr. 3/1 Mr. St. Clair somewhat depressingly and humorlessly argues against the belief, on grounds biological, geological and sociological.

1938 Irish Monthly 66 361 The satire is gravely and humourlessly cruel.

2005 C. Stross Accelerando v. 199 Pierre's lips quirk humorlessly.

1890 Sat. Rev. 13 Sept. 308/2 That total inability to see yourself as others see you..the child of humourlessness.

1958 L. Durrell Balthazar vi. 120 Your humourlessness has made you an enemy of pleasure.

2012 Times (Nexis) 27 Jan. 11 Cohen has been accused of dour humourlessness all his life.