CLOWN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Clown

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/klaʊn/ Listen

noun

Clown n.

A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an ill-bred person; a boor.

One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl. "The clown, the child of nature, without guile."

The fool or buffoon in a play, circus, etc. "The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o'the sere."

verb

Clown v. i. To act as a clown; with it. (Obs.) "Beshrew me, he clowns it properly indeed."

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Etymology of 'Clown'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Clown" Quotes from Famous Books

... a silver dollar. In the book we can smell the sawdust, hear the flapping of the big white canvas and the roaring of the lions, and listen to the merry "hoop la!" of the clown. ...

— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their legs—joined hands, and danced around him, inviting him by their gestures to perform a hornpipe in the midst. Released from these gay persecutors, a clown in motley rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a handful of ...

— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... since to be frank, when I was younger than I am to-day and given to the follies of youth, it chanced that in England I met his mother, a beautiful Spanish lady who by ill fortune was wedded to an Englishman, this man's father and a clown of clowns, who maltreated her. I will be short; the lady learned to love me and I worsted her husband in a duel. Hence this traitor's hate ...

— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... go thy ways, thou bundle of straw: I'll give thee this gift; thou shalt be a clown while thou liv'st. As lusty as they are, they run on the score with George's wife for their posset; and God knows who shall pay goodman Yeoman for his wheat sheaf. They ...

— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... seen the remark quoted with approbation, it is worth noticing the argument by which Darnley supports it. He says that an honest able man is nobler than an honest man, and Aristides with the genius of Homer nobler than Aristides with the dulness of a clown. Undoubtedly! But surely a man might say that English poetry is the noblest in the world, and yet admit that Shakespeare was a nobler poet than Tom Moore. Because honesty is nobler than any other quality, it does not follow that all ...

— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

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