clownish
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]clownish (comparative more clownish, superlative most clownish)
- Resembling or characteristic of a circus clown; comical, ridiculous.
- 1998, Bryan Senn, Drums of Terror: Voodoo in the Cinema:
- Even worse, the zombies' clownish makeup, with a stark white base and black shoe polish around the eyes, looks amateurish.
- 2014 March 9, Jacob Steinberg, “Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals”, in The Guardian:
- Once again, City's defending was clownish. James McArthur drove into the area on the left and pulled a low cross towards the far post, where the horribly timid Gaël Clichy allowed Perch to bundle the ball past Costel Pantilimon.
- 2005 May 14, Laura Barton, The Guardian:
- Indeed, when in close quarters to Rooney, it must prove almost irresistible to stick a plastic moustache and silly clownish shoes on the potato-headed fool.
- (now rare) Pertaining to peasants; rustic.
- (now rare) Uncultured, boorish; rough, coarse.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Large were his limbes, and terrible his looke, / And in his clownish hand a sharp bore speare he shooke.
- 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 4, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:
- "He is very plain, undoubtedly—remarkably plain:—but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility."
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]resembling a clown
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