Amusing means causing quiet laughter. An amusing story, mildly amusing, found it amusing.
It is a modest word, and mildly amusing is faint praise indeed — saying something was amusing rather than funny is often a polite way of saying it did not work. Finding a person amusing can also mean looking down on them.
1adjectiveamusingCausing quiet laughter.
“He told us an amusing story about getting lost in Rome.”
amusing is a quality of humour.
Old French
amuser
Middle English
*amusen
English
amuse
English, today
amusing
Built from
by surface analysis, amuse + -ing. amuse comes from Middle English amusen, from Old French amuser, from und + a-. From Late Middle English amusen (“to mutter, be astonished, gaze meditatively on”), from Old French amuser (“to stupefy, waste time, be lost in thought”), from a- + muser (“to stare stupidly at, gape, wander, waste time, loiter, think carefully about, attend to”), of unknown and obscure origin. Cognate with Occitan musa (“idle waiting”), Italian musare (“to gape idly about”). Possibly from Old French mus (“snout”) from Vulgar Latin mūsa (“snout”) — compare Medieval Latin - mūsum (“muzzle, snout”) –, from Proto-Germanic mū- (“muzzle, snout”), from Proto-Indo-European mū- (“lips, muzzle”). Compare frr müs, mös (“mouth”), German Maul (“muzzle, snout”). Alternative etymology connects muser and musa with Frankish muoza (“careful attention, leisure, idleness”), from Proto-Germanic mōtǭ (“leave, permission”), from Proto-Indo-European med- (“to acquire, possess, control”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA