straight man
Noun
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Noun
straight man
- Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see straight, man; for example, a heterosexual man.
- the committee consisted of two lesbians and a straight man
- (idiomatic) A member (of any gender) of a team of comic performers who plays a supporting role by helping to set up jokes and punch lines through engaging in dialog with another comedian playing a more eccentric or otherwise more interesting character; a foil who plays such a role in theatrical comedy.
- Synonyms: stooge, second banana
- For many years Bud Abbott served brilliantly as Lou Costello's deadpan straight man.
- 2010, Caroline Graham, A Ghost in the Machine, Hachette UK ISBN 9780755373222:
- Recently he had successfully concluded a case featuring a poet who wore only latex, lived on liquorice allsorts and worshipped a horse she believed to be the reincarnation of Radclyffe Hall. And she was the straight man.
- 1982 April, Pam Hait, “Sandra Day O’Connor: Warm, Witty and Wise”, The Ladies' Home Journal, volume 99, page 46:
- She was the straight man, he was the comedian, and their audience was “standing room only” when they stepped up to the microphone.
- French: clown blanc
- German: Stichwortgeber, Stichwortgeberin
- Italian: spalla
- Portuguese: escada
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003