laughter: the sound of mirth, from glad rejoicing to hollow merriment or amusement
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary word for laughing out loud, the noise a full and happy mouth makes. At its brightest it is pure delight, the laughter of people whose fortunes have turned (Job 8:21;Psalm 126:2), running in parallel with shouts of joy.
But the wisdom writers hear something else in it. In Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, laughter is repeatedly weighed and found light: it can mask a hurting heart, with the word for joy (שִׂמְחָה) standing right beside it in Proverbs 14:13; it is called "mad," and the cackle of fools is compared to thorns crackling uselessly under a pot. The same word can also mean treating something as a game, as when a fool finds wrongdoing to be mere "sport" (Proverbs 10:23).
So the range runs along a single line, from laughter that celebrates to laughter that is empty or careless. Context, not the word itself, tells you where on that line a given verse sits.
Nuances
1aglad, celebratory laughter; the sound of joy
TranslatabilityDirect
Job 8:21Psa 126:2
1blaughter as fleeting or foolish merriment; mirth the wise treat with suspicion
Pro 14:13Ecc 2:2Ecc 7:3Ecc 7:6Ecc 10:19
1csport, amusement; treating an activity as a game
Pro 10:23*
2
a laughingstock: one whom others laugh at in scorn; an object of derision
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The very same word for laughing takes on a bitter turn when the laughter is aimed AT someone. Here the person or nation is not the one laughing but the one being laughed at, the butt of everyone's ridicule.
Jeremiah uses it of his own public humiliation as a prophet (Jeremiah 20:7), and repeatedly of Moab's downfall, which leaves the once-proud nation a joke to its neighbors (Jeremiah 48:26, 48:27, 48:39). Job and Lamentations sound the same note of a righteous or suffering person mocked by those around him, with the word for mocking (לַעַג) standing beside it in Jeremiah 20:7.
The force of this sense is the shame of being watched and laughed at, a public loss of face rather than any private feeling.
the Hebrew is literally the word for laughter, so being a laughingstock is being laughed at, a link the English word hidesJer 48:27
Both
both name someone held up as an object of public ridiculeJer 48:26Lam 3:14
Only laughingstock
"laughingstock" sounds like a fixed label, losing the picture of people actually laughing at the person
“sport”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“mirth”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“derision”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How seḥoq differs from similar Hebrew words
צחקA closely related noun for laughter, tied to the delighted laughter surrounding Isaac's birth; it stays purely glad and never carries the scorn or the laughingstock sense this word develops.
carries a neutral "amusement" or "sport" sense that the wisdom writers judge to be empty or foolish pleasure, a shade of frivolity the other word never takesEcc 2:2Ecc 7:6Pro 10:23
Both
both name glad laughter, the outward sound of joy and delightGen 21:6Psa 126:2
both can flip to the object of laughter, naming someone made a scorn or a laughingstock before othersEzk 23:32Jer 20:7
belongs to the birth-naming of Isaac, where Sarah's laughter echoes her son's name and celebrates God's gift; it is joy fixed to that one wordplay rather than a general term for mirthGen 21:6
שׂמחהInner joy or gladness as a state of heart, whereas this word is its outward, audible expression: the laughter itself.
names the audible act of laughing itself, the sound that comes from the mouth, not a settled mood of the heartJob 8:21Psa 126:2
can sour into derision, so that a person or nation becomes the thing others laugh at, a mocking that gladness never carriesJob 12:4Jer 20:7Lam 3:14
Both
both stand together for the pleasures of life, so closely paired that a passage can weigh one against the other as the same fleeting delightPro 14:13Ecc 2:2
names an inner state of the heart, gladness a person feels within, rather than any outward soundPsa 4:7Deu 28:47
gathers a whole community into festive celebration at feasts, dedications, and worship, a shared rejoicing that laughter is never used for1Ch 12:40Neh 8:12Est 9:17
לעגThe act of mocking, the derisive taunt or sneer aimed at someone; this word in its scornful sense names the victim instead, the one being laughed at.
Covers glad, festive laughter and mirth, the joyful sound of a mouth filled with delight, a range the taunting word never touches. When exiles return, their mouth is filled with such laughter, and a feast is made to produce it.Psa 126:2Job 8:21Ecc 10:19
Can name a hollow or foolish merriment that gives no lasting joy, the fleeting laughter that Ecclesiastes calls mad and that a wise heart weighs against sorrow. This shade of empty gaiety has no counterpart in a word that means only mockery.Ecc 2:2Ecc 7:6Pro 14:13
Both
Both can name the humiliation of being made a public object of ridicule. The derision word describes a people turned into a byword for their neighbors, while the laughter word describes the same disgrace from the other side, the shamed one who has become everyone's laughingstock.Psa 79:4Jer 20:7
Names the hostile mockery itself: the scornful taunt poured out on a target, always contemptuous and never lighthearted. Elihu accuses Job of drinking down scorn as freely as water, and the prophets picture derision as a bitter cup pressed on the shamed.Job 34:7Ezk 23:32
Fixes on the sting of being scorned by those who look down from a position of ease or pride, so the word carries the contempt of the mocker rather than any note of amusement.Psa 123:4Hos 7:16
קלסBeing an object of scorn, often paired with hissing and head-shaking; it overlaps heavily with the laughingstock sense here, which frames the humiliation specifically as being laughed at.
Reaches into glad, festive laughter and merriment, the joyful sound of a mouth filled with mirth, a range that H7047 never touches.Job 8:21Psa 126:2Ecc 2:2
Both
Both can turn a person or a nation into a laughingstock, the object of surrounding scorn and mockery.Psa 79:4Lam 3:14
Names derision purely as public reproach: the scorn and jeering of surrounding neighbors, and it is always yoked to words for shame. It carries no hint of laughter or mirth of any kind, only the disgrace of being held in contempt.Psa 44:13Psa 79:4Jer 20:8
seḥoq in the other biblical languages
γέλωςGreek“laughter”The Greek noun for laughter; in James it carries the same wisdom suspicion of frivolous laughter that this word does in Ecclesiastes, but it does not extend to the laughingstock sense.
Only the Hebrew word also means derision aimed at a person: to become the laughingstock everyone mocks, the object of scorn rather than the one laughing.Jer 20:7Lam 3:14Jer 48:26
The Hebrew word also names wholly glad, celebratory laughter as a blessing or as restored joy, with no shadow of folly or scorn over it.Job 8:21Psa 126:2
Both
Both name laughter as human mirth, and both regard that mirth with suspicion: sorrow is ranked above it, and the laughter is something to be surrendered or turned to mourning.Jas 4:9Ecc 7:3
Both can mark laughter as the empty amusement of the fool rather than settled joy.Jas 4:9Ecc 7:6
The noun derives from the verb שׂחק "to laugh, play" (a byform of צחק), and the lexicons (BDB; HALOT) list a spread from active "laughter, mirth" through "sport, play" to the passive "object of laughter, laughingstock, derision." The wisdom corpus supplies most of the active uses, where Qoheleth in particular subjects laughter to critique as הבל (Ecclesiastes 2:2; 7:3-6; cf. Seow, Ecclesiastes, AB), while the prophetic and lament uses cluster in the passive sense of national or personal humiliation, notably the Moab oracle (Jeremiah 48) and Jeremiah's own complaints, where שׂחוק is paired with לעג. TDOT (Bartelmus, "śāḥaq/ṣāḥaq") treats the two spellings of the root together and notes the semantic slide from playful laughter to derisive laughter directed at a victim.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. שְׂחוֹקlexicon
BDB, s.v. שְׂחוֹקlexicon
R. Bartelmus, "śāḥaq/ṣāḥaq," TDOTtheological-dictionary