English
clown
Pronunciation Noun

clown (plural clowns)

  1. A slapstick performance artist often associated with a circus and usually characterized by bright, oversized clothing, a red nose, face paint, and a brightly colored wig.
    • 2008, Lich King, "Black Metal Sucks", Toxic Zombie Onslaught.
      quote en
  2. A person who acts in a silly fashion.
  3. A stupid person.
  4. (obsolete) A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an illbred person; a boor.
    • 1700, Timothy Nourse, Campania Foelix, pp. 15–16
      […] three things ought always to be kept under: a mastiff dog, a stone horse and a clown; and really I think a snarling, cross-grained clown to be the most unlucky beast of three.
  5. (obsolete) One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl; a yokel.
    • The clown, the child of nature, without guile.
    • He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings. The clowns soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; […]
Synonyms Translations Translations Verb

clown (clowns, present participle clowning; past and past participle clowned)

  1. (intransitive) To act in a silly or playful fashion.
  2. (transitive, AAVE) To ridicule.
    • 2002, Vibe (volume 10, number 11, page 62)
      The show Dismissed was one of my favorites, because I like to see people get clowned.
    • , Miracle Baby
      All my comrades were laughing and clowning me, but shit, that didn't stop me from talking more shit.


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