Meaning
Laughing so hard and so long that it becomes physically painful, as with a sharp pain in the side. Almost always predicated of a group or individual reacting to something hilarious, as in 'we were in stitches'. Informal and warm; always positive, describing delight rather than mockery, unless the laughter is plainly at someone's expense. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A 'stitch' here is the sharp, stabbing pain in the side brought on by exertion or prolonged laughing, so the idiom pictures laughter intense enough to cause that spasm. The Phrase Finder credits the earliest form to Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' (circa 1602), where Maria says, 'If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me.' Despite that early appearance, the expression did not become a widespread idiom until centuries later; the British Council notes it was not popular in its modern clipped form until relatively recent times. Shakespeare's line is the ancestor of the modern phrase rather than the fixed idiom itself, a distinction worth keeping when calling this a Shakespeare coinage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- have somebody in stitches
- keep us in stitches
- laugh oneself into stitches
- reduced to stitches
Usage Examples
- The best man's speech had the whole reception in stitches.
- Her deadpan account of the traffic stop left the interview panel in stitches.
- The kittens chasing the laser pointer kept the children in stitches for an hour.