buffoon

[buh-foon]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR buffoon ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a person who amuses others by tricks, jokes, odd gestures and postures, etc.

a person given to coarse or undignified joking.

Origin of buffoon

1540–50; earlier buffon < French < Italian buffone, equivalent to buff- (expressive base; compare buffa puff of breath, buffare to puff, puff up one's checks) + -one agent suffix ≪ Latin -ō, accusative -ōnem

Related formsbuf·foon·er·y

[buh-foo-nuh-ree] /bəˈfu nə ri/, nounbuf·foon·ish, adjective

Synonyms for buffoon

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR buffoon ON THESAURUS.COM

1. jester, clown, fool. 2. boor.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for buffoon

clown, fool, harlequin, jester, joker, wag, zany, antic, comedian, comic, bozo, droll, merry-andrew

Examples from the Web for buffoon

Contemporary Examples of buffoon

Apparently, he was known in the Foreign Office as "HBH"—His Buffoon Highness.
Good Riddance to Prince Andrew’s Day Job!
William Underhill
July 23, 2011
That messy hair of his that I always thought was buffoon hair was buffoon hair hiding a monster cock.
Rupert Everett Unleashed
Kevin Sessums
April 6, 2009
Well, Coughlin was a buffoon, too, and in 1932, the party of Herbert Hoover was also in disarray.
Who Made Frank Rich God?
Lee Siegel
March 16, 2009
Keep that source of remarkable strength all quiet on the buffoon front.
Good Riddance, O.J.
Stanley Crouch
December 6, 2008

Historical Examples of buffoon

Do not fancy you can be a detached wit and avoid being a buffoon; you cannot.
Alarms and Discursions
G. K. Chesterton
She had made him a laughing-stock, a buffoon, a political joke.
Rope
Holworthy Hall
As dictator, he is a buffoon; let him make himself emperor, he will be grotesque.
Napoleon the Little
Victor Hugo
Martyrdoms were represented on the stage, the martyr being the buffoon.
Folkways
William Graham Sumner
They are at San Antonio—the baker, the buffoon, the two young men who dig.
The Crusade of the Excelsior
Bret Harte

British Dictionary definitions for buffoon

buffoon

noun

a person who amuses others by ridiculous or odd behaviour, jokes, etc

a foolish person

Derived Formsbuffoonery, noun

Word Origin for buffoon

C16: from French bouffon, from Italian buffone, from Medieval Latin būfō, from Latin: toad

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for buffoon

1540s, "type of pantomime dance;" 1580s, "clown," from Middle French bouffon (16c.), from Italian buffone "jester," from buffa "joke, jest, pleasantry," from buffare "to puff out the cheeks," a comic gesture, of echoic origin. Also cf. -oon.