ridicule
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈɹɪdɪkjuːl/
Verb

ridicule (ridicules, present participle ridiculing; past and past participle ridiculed)

  1. (transitive) to criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of
    His older sibling constantly ridiculed him with sarcastic remarks.
Synonyms Translations Noun

ridicule

  1. derision; mocking or humiliating words or behaviour
    • 1738, Alexander Pope, Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogue II
      Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, / Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone.
  2. An object of sport or laughter; a laughing stock.
    • [Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries.
    • To the people […] but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule.
  3. The quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness.
    • to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice
Synonyms Related terms Translations
  • Italian: derisione
  • Russian: насме́шка
Adjective

ridicule

  1. (obsolete) ridiculous
    This action […] became so ridicule. — Aubrey.
Noun

ridicule (plural ridicules)

  1. (now, historical) A small woman's handbag; a reticule. [from 18th c.]
    • c. 1825, Frances Burney, Journals and Letters, Penguin 2001, p. 455:
      I hastily drew my empty hand from my Ridicule.
    • 1838, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist:
      ‘Pockets, women's ridicules, houses, mailcoaches […] ,’ said Mr. Claypole.



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