clown means 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.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, clown ranks #2,351 of 14,308 for Most Malleable Words, #2,382 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #3,953 of 14,340 for Most Vivid Words, #7,084 of 14,414 for Most Elegant Words.
clown is pronounced /ˈklaʊ̯n/.
Why “clown” is a great word
A slapstick performer, typically in a circus, characterized by exaggerated makeup and costume, or a person who acts foolishly. From earlier clowne, likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Icelandic klunni ("clumsy fellow") and Swedish kluns ("clumsy fellow"), from Middle Low German klunz, related to klunt ("pile, lump"), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gel- ("to ball up; amass"); the professional fool meaning is attested c. 1600. Unlike a jester, who was a specific, often witty court functionary, or a buffoon, who is contemptibly ridiculous, the clown is a broader creature of the common crowd. It is the stark white face glowing under the big top’s glare, the oversized shoes slapping against the sawdust, and the sudden, terrible silence when the pratfall fails to amuse—the art of engineered clumsiness reminding us that the distance between laughter and grief is only the thickness of greasepaint.
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”), Swedish kluns (“clumsy fellow”), all from Middle Low German klunz, from klunt (“pile, lump, something thick”); according to Pokorny, this could be related to a group of Germanic derivatives of Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up; amass”), such as Proto-West Germanic *klott (“lump”), Proto-Germanic *klūtaz (“clod, lump”), *kultaz (“lump, bundle”), etc.
Alternatively, directly from Low German (compare North Frisian klönne (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kluns (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kloen (“uncouth person, lout”)), themselves from the same ultimate source as above.
Unlikely from Latin colōnus (“colonist, farmer”), altho
noun
- 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.“Over there in Norway, the churches all burn down / Let's go dress in goth clothes and get painted like a clown”
- A person who acts in a silly fashion.“He was regarded as the clown of the school, always playing pranks.”
- A stupid person.“"The dealers snatched at the state of intellectual exhaustion and scepticism of all values that followed the first world war to abolish values and substitute for them an arbitrary mumbo-jumbo of occultism and pseudo-Freudianism, which they tagged on to the works of studio clowns like Picasso and Modigliani and the like."”
- A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an illbred person; a boor.“This loutish clown is such that you never saw so ill - favoured a vizar”
- One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl; a yokel.“The clown, the child of nature, without guile.”
- A clownfish.“While the tomato clownfish Amphiprion frenatus has been spawned in captivity, wild-caught tomato clowns are more often seen for sale.”
verb
- To act in a silly or playful fashion.“Except for Rasheena, the rest of the baby mamas was at least struggling to live halfway right. They used to clown and act shitty whenever they came by Noojie's and saw Carmiesha there. But every last one of them ended up being grateful to her for the things she did for their kids.”
- To ridicule, make fun of.“The show Dismissed was one of my favorites, because I like to see people get clowned.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- auguste 84% match — A kind of clown, usually serving as an anarchic foil to the whiteface. vs clown →
- harlequin 81% match — A pantomime fool, typically dressed in colorful checkered clothes, used as a stock character in commedia dell'arte and other genres. vs clown →
- pantaloon 81% match — An aging buffoon. vs clown →
- pantomime 81% match — A Classical comic actor, especially one who works mainly through gesture and mime. vs clown →
- shtick 80% match — A generally humorous routine. vs clown →
- pierrot 80% match — Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Tarucus and Castalia, notable for white contrasting with brown or black on the underwings. vs clown →
- redface 80% match — A style of theatrical makeup in which a white actor reddens the face in order to portray a Native American. vs clown →
- farce 80% match — A style of humor marked by broad improbabilities with little regard to regularity or method. vs clown →