clown
See also: Clown
English
Etymology
Likely from North Germanic, akin to Icelandic klunni (“klutz”) and Old Frisian klönne (“klutz”). Less likely from Latin colonus (“colonist, farmer”), although learned awareness of this term may have influenced semantic development.
Pronunciation
- enPR: kloun, IPA(key): /klaʊn/
- Rhymes: -aʊn
Noun
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A clown
clown (plural clowns)
- A slapstick performance artist often associated with a circus and typically characterised by bright, oversized clothing, a red nose, face paint, and a brightly colored wig.
- 2008, Lich King, "Black Metal Sucks", Toxic Zombie Onslaught.
- Over there in Norway, the churches all burn down / Let's go dress in goth clothes and get painted like a clown
- 2008, Lich King, "Black Metal Sucks", Toxic Zombie Onslaught.
- A person who acts in a silly fashion.
- (chiefly Britain) A stupid person.
- (obsolete) A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an illbred person; a boor.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir Philip Sidney to this entry?)
- Timothy Nourse, Campania Foelix (1700), 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.
- (obsolete) One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl; a yokel.
- Cowper
- The clown, the child of nature, without guile.
- Samuel Johnson
- 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; […]
- Cowper
Derived terms
Translations
performance artist working in a circus
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person acting in a silly fashion
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Verb
clown (third-person singular simple present clowns, present participle clowning, simple past and past participle clowned)
- (intransitive) To act in a silly or playful fashion.
Derived terms
- clown about (British)
- clown around
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /klɑu̯n/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: clown
- Rhymes: -ɑu̯n
Derived terms
- clownsneus
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /klun/
Audio: (file) - Homophone: clowns
Further reading
- “clown” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Spanish
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /klon/, [klõn]
Swedish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈklaʊn/
Declension
Declension of clown | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | clown | clownen | clowner | clownerna |
Genitive | clowns | clownens | clowners | clownernas |
Derived terms
Welsh
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /klɔu̯n/
Alternative forms
- closwn (colloquial, first-person singular conditional)
Verb
clown
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