"To laugh into your hands"

A good question came from Reach about the expression to laugh into your hands. This is not a very common expression in English.

If you imagine the action of bringing your hands up to your mouth, you understand that to laugh into your hands means to hide the fact that you are laughing.

This usually means that you are embarrassed to be laughing or that you don't want others to know that you are laughing.

A synonym for some uses of to laugh into your hands is to giggle.

The girls stood in front of the class and laughed softly into their hands.

We laughed into our hands, trying not to make him feel any worse.

I had to laugh into my hands to keep from waking my roommates.