Literal Translation
To laugh yellow
Actual Meaning
Hollow laugh, forced laugh
Etymology
Some trace the first use of this expression, with its current meaning, to Saint-Simon in the 18th century. They link “yellow” to the complexion of people suffering from liver disease who, given the discomfort of their illness and the mood it caused, could only laugh in a forced manner.
But in 1640, Oudin wrote ‘il rit jaune comme farine’ (he laughs yellow like flour), an expression from the slang of the time where “farine” did not refer to the foodstuff, but to someone who was vicious (‘des gens de même farine’ referred, in the 1694 dictionary of the Académie Française, to ‘people who are prone to the same vices, or who are of the same cabal’). In other words, even at that time, ‘rire jaune’ referred to an unhealthy, deceitful laugh. It is therefore probably from this period, and not from the bilious, that this expression comes to us.