ha

A moment or instance at which a sudden, revelatory idea, realization, or solution to a problem comes to mind. We'd been working on the problem at the lab for weeks, but the aha moment came to me when I was out gardening!

proverb Do not ruin something simply to avoid some minor difficulty, inconvenience, or expense. "Ship" is thought to be a dialectical pronunciation of "sheep," and a "ha'porth" is a "halfpennyworth." Tar was used to protect sheep skin from flies (and thereby illness and death), so not having enough tar would contribute to the death of the sheep. You know your mom is going to be offended, so please call her before the dinner party—do not spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar.

Humorous or amusing, as opposed to strange (another meaning of "funny"). That play sure is funny. Funny ha-ha, I mean—I laughed through the whole thing.

A phrase used when the speaker is trying to determine if someone else used the word "funny" to mean "strange" or "humorous." A: "That play sure is funny." B: "Do you mean funny-peculiar or funny ha-ha?"

informal Used as a written expression of laughter, or more generally to indicate that the writer finds something humorous. Also commonly written as "ha ha" or "ha-ha." Greater degrees of laughter or humor can be represented by more instances of "ha." A: "So then Charlie says, 'I've heard of teachers' pets, but this is ridiculous!'" B: "Haha, classic Charlie." A: "What did the surfer say about the London Underground? 'Totally Tubular, dude!'" B: "Hahaha, that's a good one!" A: "Congratulations on the promotion! Sounds like you're pretty much running the place now, eh?" B: "Ha ha, not quite, but thanks all the same."

amusing; comical. (As opposed to funny peculiar.) I didn't mean that Mrs. Peters is funny ha-ha. She's weird—funny peculiar in fact. Mike thinks his jokes are funny ha-ha, but we laugh because they are so silly.

If you spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar, you spoil a large or important piece of work completely because you refuse to spend a small amount of money on one aspect of it. I think it's a modest investment that is well worth making. You don't want to spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar. Note: `Ship' in this expression was originally `sheep'. A `ha'porth' is a `halfpenny's worth'; a halfpenny was a British coin of very low value. Shepherds used to put tar on their sheep's wounds and sores to protect them from flies, and it would be foolish to risk the sheep's health in order to save a small amount of money.