laughing a minute
- idiom
- Archaic
:
riéndose todo el tiempo
- Whenever we're together, we're laughing a minute—there's never a dull moment.
Examples
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The party was so much fun that I was laughing a minute from start to finish.
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The children were laughing a minute while playing games in the backyard.
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She was laughing a minute during the entire show; her laughter never stopped.
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She is laughing a minute at his jokes.
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Why are you laughing a minute during the meeting?
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She was laughing a minute at the hilarious movie; her joy was infectious.
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At the picnic, everyone was laughing a minute as we shared funny stories.
Synonyms
6
2.9
Often laughing in a light, silly way when nervous or amused
1
1.0
Showing someone is smiling and making a happy sound
Laughing a lot because something is very funny
Antonyms
How Amused
- Informal
- Archaic
1
1.0
237
2.0
1
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal composition 'laughing' + 'a minute' would most naturally be interpreted as laughing for a short time, but the attested meaning 'constantly laughing' (or very amused) cannot be derived from those parts. The expression is idiomatic/dialectal—'a minute' functions as an unpredictable intensifier here—so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would likely not infer the correct meaning.
Etymology
Laughing a minute may come from the image of someone laughing so often you would hear a laugh every minute. So the picture of steady, non-stop laughter became a way to say 'constantly laughing' or having fun all the time.