humourlessness BrE
humorlessness AmE

The humourlessness that she had mistaken for integrity, the ideological snobbery she had thought was political commitment.

The most conspicuous trait of the Neanderthal character was its absolute humourlessness or, more exactly, its lack of frivolity.

We cite their love of Jerry Lewis films, quite rightly, as evidence of their innate humourlessness.

But although he found Pound's humourlessness and growing megalomania more and more distasteful, Eliot's activities on his behalf continued.

Those who do not enjoy Malvolio would reduce him to a conventional killjoy, a scapegoat who deserves to be held up to ridicule because of his officious humourlessness.

After the agonising humourlessness of working with Hughes (who was obsessed with her and tried to sleep with her), it was a great relief to Russell to do a comedy, The Paleface, in which she played Calamity Jane.

It has often been mocked: Terry Castle says that "like many bookish lesbians I seem to have spent much of my adult life making jokes about it", and Mary Renault, who read it in 1938, remembered laughing at its "earnest humourlessness" and "impermissible allowance of self-pity".