farce
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to season (a speech or composition), especially with witty material.
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Obsolete. to stuff; cram.
noun
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a broadly humorous play based on the exploitation of improbable situations
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the genre of comedy represented by works of this kind
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a ludicrous situation or action
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Also: farcemeat. another name for forcemeat
verb
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to enliven (a speech, etc) with jokes
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to stuff (meat, fowl, etc) with forcemeat
Other Word Forms
- unfarced adjective
Etymology
Origin of farce
First recorded in 1300–50; (for the noun) Middle English fars “stuffing,” from Middle French farce, from Vulgar Latin farsa (unrecorded), noun use of feminine of Latin farsus, earlier fartus “stuffed,” past participle of farcīre “to stuff”; (for the verb) Middle English farsen, from Old French farcir, from Latin farcīre
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One sloppy murder attempt becomes full-on farce as Man-soo finds himself shouting marital advice to an intended victim over deafening music before the action devolves into a messy three-way scrum.
From Los Angeles Times
Hasina, who has been tried in absentia, called the tribunal a "farce".
From BBC
In the birthplace of Western drama, a classic night unfolded from around the hour-mark, in Greece and in Copenhagen, a tragicomedy and a mystery and a farce.
From BBC
He said: "It introduced her unique comic sensibility, with a strong flavour of farce, matched with a campaigning sense of social justice, which played out magnificently over subsequent novels and in her public life."
From BBC
In her first interview with the BBC since she fled the country on 5 August 2024, she said her trial in absentia was a "farce" orchestrated by a "kangaroo court" controlled by political opponents.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
