different between clown vs comedian

English

Alternative forms

• clowne, cloyne (obsolete)

Etymology

From earlier clowne, cloyne (“man of rustic or coarse manners, boor, peasant”), likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Icelandic klunni (“clumsy fellow, klutz”). Compare also North Frisian klönne (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kluns (“clumsy fellow”). Unlikely from Latin col?nus (“colonist, farmer”), although learned awareness of this term may have influenced semantic development.

Pronunciation

• enPR: kloun, IPA^(key): /kla?n/
• Rhymes: -a?n

Noun

clown (plural clowns)

1. A slapstick performance artist often associated with a circus and usually characterized by bright, oversized clothing, a red nose, face paint, and a brightly colored wig.
   • 2008, Lich King, "Black Metal Sucks", Toxic Zombie Onslaught.

2. A person who acts in a silly fashion.
3. A stupid person.
4. (obsolete) A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an illbred person; a boor.
   • 1700, Timothy Nourse, Campania Foelix, 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.

5. (obsolete) One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl; a yokel.

   • The clown, the child of nature, without guile.

   • August 25, 1759, Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 71

     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; […]

Synonyms

• (person who acts in a silly fashion): buffoon, fool

Derived terms

• clown beetle
• class clown
• clown doctor
• clownfish
• clownish

Translations

Verb

clown (third-person singular simple present clowns, present participle clowning, simple past and past participle clowned)

1. (intransitive) To act in a silly or playful fashion.
2. (transitive, African-American Vernacular) To ridicule.
   • 2002, Vibe (volume 10, number 11, page 62)

     The show Dismissed was one of my favorites, because I like to see people get clowned.

   • 2017, Darrell Smith, Miracle Baby

     All my comrades were laughing and clowning me, but shit, that didn't stop me from talking more shit.

Derived terms

• clown about (British)
• clown around

See also

• coulrophobia
• jester
• jackpudding

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English clown.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl?u?n/
• Hyphenation: clown
• Rhymes: -?u?n

Noun

clown m (plural clowns, diminutive clowntje n)

1. clown (entertainer)

Derived terms

• circusclown
• clownsneus
• clownvis

See also

• august
• harlekijn
• paljas
• pierrot
• nar
• witte clown
• zot

French

Etymology

From English clown.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klun/
• Homophone: clowns

Noun

clown m (plural clowns)

1. clown (performer)
2. clown (person who acts in a comic way)

Synonyms

• (performer): (Louisiana) macaque

Further reading

• “clown” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

clown m (invariable)

1. clown (artist)

   Synonym: pagliaccio

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klawn/

Noun

clown m pers

1. (comedy) Alternative spelling of klaun.

Declension

Derived terms

• (noun) clownada
• (adjective) clownowski

Further reading

• clown in Wielki s?ownik j?zyka polskiego, Instytut J?zyka Polskiego PAN
• clown in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish

Alternative forms

• clon

Etymology

From English clown.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?klon/, [?klõn]

Noun

clown m (plural clownes)

1. clown (circus performance artist)

   Synonym: payaso

Swedish

Etymology

From English clown.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kla?n/

Noun

clown c

1. clown

Declension

Synonyms

• pajas

Derived terms

• clownaktig
• clownfisk

References

• clown in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl?u?n/

Etymology 1

Borrowed from English clown.

Noun

clown m (plural clowniaid)

1. clown

Etymology 2

Alternative forms

• closwn (colloquial, first-person singular conditional)

Verb

clown

1. first-person plural present/future of cloi
2. first-person singular imperfect/conditional of cloi
3. (literary) first-person plural imperative of cloi

Mutation

English

Etymology

comedy +? -ian. From Middle French comédien, from comédie (“comedy”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /k??mi?di.?n/

Noun

comedian (plural comedians) (feminine: comedienne)

1. An entertainer who performs in a humorous manner, especially by telling jokes.

   Synonym: comic

2. (by extension) Any person who is humorous or amusing, either characteristically or on a particular occasion.

   Synonyms: card, cutup, gagster, joker, wag, wit

3. (dated) A person who performs in theatrical plays.

   Synonyms: actor, player, thespian

   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2,^[1]

     […] the quick comedians

     Extemporally will stage us, and present

     Our Alexandrian revels;

   • 1714, Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder, London: E. Curll and A. Bettesworth, Preface,^[2]

     I Don’t pretend to write a Preface, either to point out the Beauties, or to excuse the Errors, a judicious Reader may possibly discover in the following Scenes, but to give those excellent Comedians their Due, to whom, in some Measure the best Dramatick Writers are oblig’d.

   • 1755, George Colman, The Connaisseur, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 1, p. 1,^[3]

     When a Comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily visits to the center of business, the ’Change, and the adjacent Coffee-houses; that by a frequent intercourse and conversation with “the unforeskinn’d race,” he might habituate himself to their air and deportment.

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 51,^[4]

     Becky, the nightingale, took the flowers which he threw to her and pressed them to her heart with the air of a consummate comedian.

4. (obsolete) A writer of comedies.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica, London, p. 5,^[5]

     Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old Comedians were supprest, though the acting of them were forbid;

   • 1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, London: Whitestone et al., Volume 3, Lecture 47, p. 377,^[6]

     […] the Dramatic Author, in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly place at the head of all their Comedians, is, the famous Moliere.

Synonyms

• funnyman/funnywoman

Hypernyms

• (male comedian): comedian (male and female)

Hyponyms

• (comedian, male and female): comedian (male), comedienne (female)

See also

• tragedian

Translations

Anagrams

• daemonic, demoniac, dæmonic, midocean

Romanian

Etymology

From French comédien.

Noun

comedian m (plural comedieni)

1. comedian

Declension