clown

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A performer with funny clothes, face paint, and a red nose who entertains people, often at a circus.

   The children laughed at the clown's silly tricks.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who behaves in a silly way to make others laugh.

   He was the clown of the class, always making jokes.

3. 3
   verb

   To behave in a silly or playful way.

   Stop clowning around and finish your homework.

Multiword verbs with clown

• clown around Phrasal verb A2

  to behave in a silly or playful way to amuse people

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Clown is first recorded in the mid-16th century for an unsophisticated rural person. It soon broadened to mean a rude or ill-mannered person, and by about 1600 it also denoted a theatrical fool or jester. The modern circus entertainer developed from that stage sense.

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…

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