English Help Online's Blog

The adjective for this week is “hilarious”. It is used to describe a person, a thing (such as a joke or a movie) or a situation as being extremely funny. Just as a reminder, the word “funny” is only used when we laugh at something, not when we find it interesting. Here are some examples using the word “hilarious”:

That new Jim Carrey movie was hilarious. I haven’t laughed that much watching a movie for a long time.

My best friend just told me a hilarious joke. Do you want to hear it?

I love hanging out with Wayne! He’s such a hilarious guy. He always cracks me up.

At the party last night, Nancy and Cheryl were both wearing exactly the same dress. They were both really embarrassed, but I thought it was hilarious.

It’s important to note that when we use this word, it’s already very strong in meaning, so we DON”T say: “very hilarious”; we simply say “hilarious”. Also, it sounds unnatural to say, “not hilarious”. Instead, most people would say, “It wasn’t funny at all.”

In the third example, I use the phrasal verb “crack up”. This means to make someone laugh. If you want more examples of this expression, you can check my blog entry for March 29, 2010.