Other forms: guffaws
To guffaw is to laugh very loudly. Guffaw at the joke, a loud guffaw, guffawing in the corner.
It is coarse and unrestrained by definition, which is why a guffaw is funny to describe and awkward to be near. The word is Scots and imitates the sound directly.
1verbguffawTo laugh very loudly.
“He guffawed so loudly at the film that people in the row ahead turned around.”
guffaw is a laughing.
An early eighteenth-century Scots word, imitative of the sound.
early 18th century, originally Scots -, probably imitative of the sound.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Body Language & Gestures