clown

CEFRA2

/ˈklaʊ̯n/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    An entertainer who wears funny clothes and makes people laugh.

  2. 02

    noun

    A silly person who is not taken seriously.

Examples

  • The clown at the circus pleased my children.

  • When the little boy saw the clown, the cat got his tongue.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
4

Also pronounced

  • /ˈklæʊ̯n/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A person who acts in a silly fashion.

  2. A stupid person.

  3. 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.

More examples

In context

  • The clown fell down on purpose.

  • He was regarded as the clown of the school, always playing pranks.

  • 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...

Synonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

The sad blank made the children laugh with his funny tricks.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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”)), thems...