Rire jaune

Literally: To laugh yellow

Example: “Quand l'humoriste s'est moqué de son crâne chauve, le ministre a ri jaune.” — When the comedian mocked his bald head, the minister forced a laugh.

Origin: Nothing to do with Asian faces, whatever the folk assumption. Yellow has a long negative register in Europe alongside its positive one: Judas was painted in yellow, medieval law in some countries required Jews to wear it, sulfur's yellow belonged to Lucifer, être peint en jaune meant to be deceived by one's wife, and the Inquisition dressed its condemned in it. The usual account credits Saint-Simon in the 18th century and ties the yellow to the complexion of liver sufferers, who had little to laugh about. But Oudin has il rit jaune comme farine already in 1640, where farine (flour) is not the foodstuff but a word for a vicious sort — the Académie's 1694 dictionary glosses gens de même farine as people sharing the same vices. The yellow laugh was therefore an unhealthy, dissembling laugh a century before the invalids were blamed for it.