Other forms: chortling, chortles
To chortle is to laugh with a gleeful chuckle. Chortle with delight, chortling away, a low chortle.
Lewis Carroll invented it for Jabberwocky, probably blending chuckle and snort, and it is one of the few coined words that entered ordinary English completely. Galumph came from the same poem. The laugh is private and satisfied rather than loud.
1verbchortleTo laugh with a gleeful chuckle.
“He chortled to himself as he read the funny letter.”
chortle is a laugh.
Coined by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky, probably blending chuckle and snort. Galumph came from the same poem.
Perhaps a chuckle and snort. Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, completed in 1855 but only introduced to the public in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire