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laugh up one's sleeve
- To be secretly amused at something: “Arnie acted concerned over our plight, but we knew he was laughing up his sleeve.â€
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Idioms and Phrases
Rejoice or exult secretly, hide one's amusement, as in When she tripped over her bridal train, her sister couldn't help laughing up her sleeve . This expression replaced the earlier laugh in one's sleeve , used by Richard Sheridan in The Rivals (1775): “'Tis false, sir, I know you are laughing in your sleeve.†The expression, which alludes to hiding one's laughter in big loose sleeves, was already a proverb in the mid-1500s.Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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