buffoonery
Americannoun
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amusement by means of usually physical or visual tricks, jokes, etc..
The play swings from absurd buffoonery to high tragedy, with kinetic physicality, silliness, swords, and live music.
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coarse or undignified joking.
The managers perceived my buffoonery as a barely concealed way of calling them pretentious—and they weren’t altogether wrong.
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silly, foolish, or unseemly behavior.
It’s hard to top the current governor's race if you like your politics laced with outrageous buffoonery.
Etymology
Origin of buffoonery
Explanation
If someone tells you to cut out the buffoonery, you may want to consider taking the French fries out of your nostrils. Buffoonery means acting like a clown. Notice how buffoon sounds like puff? Well, they're related. Buffare is an Italian word meaning "puff out the cheeks," which is apparently something that Italian court jesters, or buffoons, liked to do in the 1700s. Guess you had to be there.
Vocabulary lists containing buffoonery
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 2
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Stories of Ourselves
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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.
Scenes like that don’t strike fear in anyone; they just expose the buffoonery behind the bravura.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2025
"More Cowbell" sets the bar for the kind of meticulously curated buffoonery people want from the show and any tribute marking its 50 years in business.
From Salon ● Jan. 16, 2025
“The notion that Cromitie was selected as a ‘leader’ by the co-defendants is inconceivable, given his well-documented buffoonery and ineptitude,” she wrote.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 20, 2024
All told, the 60-page document features plenty of conspiracy and buffoonery both.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2023
Clothed in his kilt and his tartan, he is grotesque and yet not grotesque, but whimsical, droll, a strange mixture of dignity and buffoonery.
From Leaves in the Wind by Gardiner, A. G. (Alfred George)
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.
