Cohort drops ball and the French laugh (7)
I believe the answer is:
chortle
'laugh' is the definition.
(chortling is a kind of laughing)
'cohort drops ball and the french' is the wordplay.
'drops' suggests deleting specific letters.
'ball' becomes 'o'.
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'the french' becomes 'le'.
'cohort' with 'o' removed is 'chort'.
'chort'+'le'='CHORTLE'
(Other definitions for chortle that I've seen before include "Chuckle merrily" , "Noisy gleeful laugh" , "Joyous chuckle" , "Laugh softly" , "Guffaw" .)