laughing off
Making light of
To laugh off something is to dismiss it with humor or pretend it doesn't bother you, deflecting criticism, embarrassment, or difficulty by treating it lightly: He laughed off the insult, but you could tell it stung.
The phrase often suggests a coping mechanism—genuine or performed—for situations that might otherwise demand a serious response.
- deflectionChange in trajectory
- reframingChanging interpretive context
- making lightTreating something as unimportant
- banterPlayful, teasing exchange
- resilienceCapacity to recover quickly
stiff upper lip · denial · teasing · cracking jokes · self-deprecation · normalization · joking · comic relief · absurdity · acceptance · sarcasm · exaggeration · understatement · shrugging off · wordplay · distraction · repartee · playing down
- brush-offsbrush off, brush-off, cold shoulder, ignore, snub
- defense mechanismsdenial, projection, repression, suppression, displacement
laughing offtaking to heart
Absorbing emotionally, feeling deeply
internalizing · mulling over · nursing · lamenting · harboring
laugh, laughed, laughing, laughs, laughter, laughable, laughably