Don't get the meaning of the sentence “意味ありげな笑いを浮かべた”

Question

I am not sure about the meaning of this sentence.

意味ありげな笑いを浮かべた

"(He) showed a meaningful laughter" ?

Is that correct?

Answer 1

• 意味ありげ has the same meaning as 意味がある気配 (and may be a contraction of this phrase). It means, just like you suggest, "meaningful" or in a longer version "indicative of having meaning".

• 笑い is more often a smile than a laughter.

• 浮かべる is related to 浮かぶ "to float/to surface".

Thus the full sentence is (very much like you suggested)

意味ありげな笑いを浮かべた
He showed a meaningful smile.

or, more poetically

A meaningful smile appeared on his face.

Answer 2

• I would say that 意味ありげ comes from 意味 "meaning" and 有{あ}り気{げ} "appearing like"/"seeming to be".

  Daijirin says 意味ありげ means 何か意味がありそうな様子, or "a state of appearing to have meaning", the 〜げ presumably coming from the 〜気{げ} which means more-or-less the same as 〜そう (see also What is the difference between ~げ and ~そう), so I think "appearing to have meaning" might be a more literal translation but that "meaningful" is probably close enough.

• The 笑い here means "smile" I think.

• I think the transitive verb 浮かべる here means "to express (on one's face)" (def #2 at Daijisen), coming from the core meaning of 浮かべる of "to float"/"to launch (a ship on water etc)".

So I think the translation "(He) expressed a meaningful smile on (his) face" would be close.

Answer 3

Cypher and userxxxx have covered the grammar but if you were struggling with "a meaningful smile" then perhaps it could be translated as:

he wore a pregnant smile on his face

or, perhaps, dependng on context:

he allowed a pregnant smile to cross his face

笑い can be smile, chuckle, snigger, giggle or smile but when I came across the following in the textbook そうまとめ文法N２：

男は 意味ありげな 笑いを 浮かべた。

I imagined a small huddle in corner, whispering, and took the line to mean:

The men let out a meaningful laugh.

(again it probably comes down to context.) The following expressions are useful to know:

自信ありげconfident laugh

自信なさげ laugh lacking in confidence

自慢げboastful