farceur
Americannoun
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a writer or director of or actor in farce.
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a joker; wag.
noun
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a writer of or performer in farces
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a joker
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of farceur
1775–85; < French, Middle French, equivalent to farc ( er ) to joke, banter (derivative of farce farce ) + -eur -eur
Explanation
A farceur is a comedian or jokester, especially one whose specialty is broad, satirical comedy. Your teacher may call you the class clown, but you can insist on being known as the farceur of the freshman class. Use this word for anyone who really makes you laugh, as well as people who write or perform hilariously clever spoofs and satires. Farceur is derived from the French farce, "comic interlude in a play," or literally "stuffing," and its root, farcire, "to stuff or cram."
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.
See Examples For:
They’re all presented on the page by an inspired farceur whose exquisitely penned prose seems effortless, but belies the painstaking craftsmanship needed to make his split-second timing come off.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
He began as the disillusioned farceur of “Roger & Me,” in 1989.
From New York Times ● Jun. 30, 2020
Andrew Sachs, a seasoned farceur who portrayed the diminutive, dunderheaded and much-abused Spanish waiter Manuel on “Fawlty Towers,” widely regarded as one of the best sitcoms of all time, died Nov. 23 in London.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2016
John Cleese told the Today programme that Sachs was a "sweet man" and a "brilliant farceur".
From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2016
“Cut him down, sir,” answers the indomitable farceur.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 6, 1841, by Various
In Larissa FastHorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play,” which opened on Monday at Playwrights Horizons, the familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs.
From New York Times ● Nov. 6, 2018
I mean the sort of tickling administered by a team of master farceurs who frisk you into a state of sustained laughter, as involuntary and contented as the purr of a kitten at play.
From New York Times ● Sep. 28, 2018
The movie also provides solid evidence that at least two gifted farceurs can display emotional range well beyond the demands of a Lorne Michaels’ skit-com.
From Time ● Sep. 9, 2014
One wonders what American farceurs would make of Richard Bean's adapted script, and I feel assured that some enterprising Seattle theater will have a go at it.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2012
The text of Mountfort's "Dr. Faustus" reveals that his farce, like any, must depend to a great extent on its farceurs.
From The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus Made into a Farce by Mountfort, William
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.
