laughing stock

• laughingstock, laughing-stock

From laughing +‎ stock (“source, supply; butt, target”). Compare also whipping-stock, jesting-stock.

laughing stock (plural laughing stocks)

1. (idiomatic) An object of ridicule, someone who is publicly ridiculed; a butt of sport.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, act 3, scene 1:

     Pray you let us not be

     laughing-stocks to other men's humours.

   • 1856, Lord Macaulay, contribution to Encyclopedia Britannica on Oliver Goldsmith:

     When he talked, he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers.

   • 2004 September 12, Judy Battista, "Pro Football: NFL Matchups, Week 1," New York Times (retrieved 19 April 2009):

     If anyone can restore dignity to a franchise that has been close to a laughing stock in the last few years, it's Gibbs.

   • 2019 February 19, Annie Cohen, 'Yes, There’s Anti-Semitism In Labour. No, Those Politicians Didn’t Quit Over It.', The Forward (retrieved 21 February 2019):

     The split was supposedly triggered by racism — specifically anti-Jewish racism. But on this front, the Independent Group have already become a laughingstock.

• See also Thesaurus:laughingstock

• butt of the joke