• (RP) IPA: /fɑːs/
• (America) enPR: färs, IPA: /fɑɹs/

Borrowed from Middle French farce.

farce

1. (uncountable) A style of humor marked by broad improbabilities with little regard to regularity or method.
2. (countable) A motion picture or play featuring this style of humor.

   The farce that we saw last night had us laughing and shaking our heads at the same time.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗:

     Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […]; his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.

3. (uncountable) A situation abounding with ludicrous incidents.

   The first month of labor negotiations was a farce.

4. (uncountable) A ridiculous or empty show.

• French: farce
• German: Farce, Posse
• Italian: farsa
• Portuguese: farsa
• Russian: фарс
• Spanish: farsa

• German: Farce
• Portuguese: farsa
• Russian: фарс
• Spanish: farsa, sainete

• German: Farce
• Portuguese: farsa
• Russian: фарс

Verb from Middle English farcen, from Old French farsir, farcir, from Latin farciō.

farce (farces, present participle farcing; simple past and past participle farced)

1. (transitive) To stuff with forcemeat or other food items.
   • 1923, Walter de la Mare, Seaton's Aunt:

     The lunch […] consisted […] of […] lobster mayonnaise, cold game sausages, an immense veal and ham pie farced with eggs, truffles, and numberless delicious flavours; besides kickshaws, creams and sweetmeats.

2. (transitive, figurative) To fill full; to stuff.
   • 1678, Robert Sanderson, Pax Ecclesiae:

     The first principles of religion should not be farced with school points and private tenets.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To make fat.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To swell out; to render pompous.
   • 1615, George Sandys, “(please specify the page)”, in The Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610. […], London: […] [Richard Field] for W. Barrett, →OCLC ↗:

     farcing his letter with fustian

5. Alternative form of farse

farce

1. (culinary) Forcemeat, stuffing.