black humourblack humorn.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xix. x. 1284 If þer is moche blak humour in þe skynne..þanne is blak colour ygendred in þe yhe.

1583 P. Barrough Methode of Phisicke v. xxv. 267 For that (as Galene sayeth) is ingendred of a blacke humour, that is vehemently burnt.

1598 W. Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost i. i. 228 Besedged with sable coloured melancholie, I did commende the blacke oppressing humour to the most holsome phisicke of thy health-geuing ayre.]

1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy 447 It..recreats the spirits, exhilerates the minde, purgeth the braines of those anxious blacke melancholy fumes, and cleanseth the whole body of that blacke humour by vrine.

1688 Marquis of Halifax Lady's New-years Gift 51 If your Husband should be really sullen..let the Black Humour begin to spend it self, before you begin to come in.

1709 S. Acton Fruit from Canaan 132 For this black Humour, wherever it prevails, extending it self thro the whole Body, thereby affects the Spirit, and present every thing to the Mind in its own Colours.

1769 Real Seeker 217 Your processions, and bowings, and holy water, and incense, and crossing, would divert this black humour, and make us quite gay and thoughtless.

1856 Househ. Words 13 Dec. 514/2 The gentlemen had all been out shooting, and with but little success, I believe; any how, Mr. Gisborne had had none, and was in a black humour accordingly.

1918 J. S. Clouston Spy in Black vii. 199 In fact, for some reason I was in a very black humour.

2007 N. Arikha Passions & Tempers 157 This was an ailment quite unlike that suffered by Francesco Sforza over 100 years before, though it would have been due at first to the same black humour.

1916 C. V. Stanford & C. Forsyth Hist. Mus. x. 212 They [sc. Russian songs] give utterance to a ‘yearning without hope’... Humour there is. But it is the black humour of the drunken headsman.

1951 Yale French Stud. 8 96 One of the elements which characterizes the make-up of Camus' world is a strong though firmly controlled element of the ‘black humour’ so prevalent in the literature of our time.

1979 N.Y. Mag. 4 June 41/1 One of the crooks suggested leaving him behind for the cops to pick up;..this would give them more room for the loot. And DeSimone could only smile morosely, for their black humor foreshadowed what he must have known was coming.

1989 Toronto Star (Nexis) 10 Oct. b5 The English characteristics I do have are, of course, the black humor, and never taking myself too seriously.

2001 A. Campbell Diary 5 Oct. in Blair Years (2007) 577 As we took off, there was a lot of black humour flowing around about the prospect of us being downed by a stinger.