The adjective "mirthless" is employed to convey an absence of genuine joy or humor, often imbuing a laugh or a smile with an undercurrent of sorrow, bitterness, or even menace. Writers use it to indicate that the laughter or smile is merely a mask, lacking any real mirth—a phenomenon evident when a character’s laugh fails to dispel the grimness of their situation, as seen in [1] and [2]. In some instances, the mirthless smile becomes a subtle but powerful emblem of detachment or foreboding, such as in [3] and [4]. The term's versatility is further highlighted by its function to deepen the psychological complexity of a character, a technique masterfully applied in works like Conrad’s [5] and Joyce’s [6].