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If someone makes a ridiculous remark about your risible muscles, they are not necessarily deriding your physique. Risible can also mean "associated with laughter," so risible muscles can simply be the ones used for laughing. (You've also got a set of risorius muscles around your mouth that help you smile.) Next time you find something laughable, tip your hat to ridēre, the Latin verb meaning "to laugh" that gave us risible as well as ridiculous and deride.

Examples of risible in a Sentence

The suggestion was downright risible. a risible comment that made the whole class laugh

Recent Examples on the Web The idea should be absurd, risible, farcical, outré. — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 15 Mar. 2022 Mei draws her crush as a merman—a fantasy more risible than racy. — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 25 Mar. 2022 These were completely risible statements such as the one claiming that Ukraine is a fascist, anti-semitic State... — Rica Cerbarano, Vogue, 22 Mar. 2022 Also risible to the crown prince was the notion that his citizens fear speaking out against him. — Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2022 In the mid-1950s, Alice Childress wrote a play about a White director rehearsing a majority Black cast in a Southern drama filled with risible stereotypes. — Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2021 But the suggestion that this scholarship is regularly being taught in K-12 history classes, or even in survey-level courses to undergraduates, is risible. — Damon Linker, The Week, 25 June 2021 Famously, Iman’s career got its start in the ’70s with a risible fiction ginned up by the photographer and inveterate fabulist Peter Beard. — New York Times, 18 Nov. 2021 Amid all the buzz around Kyle Beach, the Blackhawks flopped badly out of the gate, posting a risible 0-5-2 in their first seven games and getting outscored, 30-14. — BostonGlobe.com, 29 Oct. 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'risible.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.