grim humor

Laughing at darkness

Grim humor finds comedy in dark, morbid, or disturbing subject matter—death, suffering, disaster.

It's the joke told at a funeral, the laugh in the emergency room.

The humor doesn't deny the grimness but coexists with it, often as a coping mechanism: The paramedics had a grim humor about the job that outsiders found unsettling.

Also called dark humor or gallows humor.

Related

gallows wit · comic relief · nervous laughter · resilience · subversion · parody · fatalism · bitter pill · irony · black comedy · stoicism · cynicism · coping mechanism · grin and bear it · macabre · taboo · nihilism · sarcasm

Opposites
emotional tone

grim humorlight comedy

Humorous, undemanding entertainment

gentle humor

subject matter

grim humorclean comedy

Humor without vulgarity

dad jokes · slapstick · romantic comedy · sitcom humor · puns

comedic sophistication

grim humorbroad comedy

Unsubtle, exaggerated humor

Family

grim, humor, grimly, grimness, grimmer, grimmest, humorous, humorously, humorless

Familiarity
Top 200,000
Profile
Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Negative · Everyday, not technical · Rated PG