Polonius

[puh-loh-nee-uhs]

noun

1. the sententious father of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Example Sentences

After the ghost blames his brother, Polonius, the scene transitions seamlessly into a wedding — that of Polonius and the widowed Gertrude, who seals her new life with a karaoke rendition of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

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Bushy-browed Waterston began his acting career as a stage actor in New York with a number of Shakespeare roles, including Lear, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Prospero, Leonato, Prince Hal, Silvius, Cloten and Benedict.

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“Roaming the court in striped flannel pajamas, he’s a “Marat/Sade” inmate ready to bare a buttock to the prying Polonius, slam Ophelia to the ground with a violence that turns infuriatingly into softness and light, and paint Gertrude with the blood smearing his face and body after the murder of Polonius,” Rogoff writes.

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Last year, Van Norden played Polonius in an otherwise unmemorable Antaeus production of “Hamlet” and made the character seem more fascinating than even Hamlet.

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Daniel Pearce makes of Polonius a hilariously pedantic desk jockey and bad idea bear.

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