zany
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
noun
-
a clown or buffoon, esp one in old comedies who imitated other performers with ludicrous effect
-
a ludicrous or foolish person
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of zany
1560–70; (< Middle French ) < Italian zan ( n ) i (later zanno ) a servant character in the commedia dell’arte, perhaps originally the character's name, the Upper Italian form of Tuscan Gianni, for Giovanni John
Explanation
If you've been called zany, you are goofy, wacky, and clownish. Zany describes very silly people and behaviors. If you break into a bad, old-guy imitation of hip-hop, you might be trying too hard to be zany. There's an old character in comedies from the 15th through the 19th centuries who always had the Italian name Gianni, or Giovanni, another form of which was "Zanni" — from which we get the adjective zany. Just as there are good clowns and kind of scary, weird clowns, zany describes both truly funny and laughable people and things, as well as foolish, or ludicrous, attempts at being funny. Something zany makes people laugh, unless it's weird zany and just makes them cringe.
Vocabulary lists containing zany
100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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Maniac Magee
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"Ad Power," "Without Commercials," and "What's Wrong with Advertising"
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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.
The song's hiccupy beat, and zany references to jam roly poly and custard left Europe bewildered.
From BBC • May 17, 2026
But the frontrunner of this awards season has long been "One Battle," a zany thriller about a retired revolutionary looking for his teen daughter.
From Barron's • Mar. 12, 2026
Our critic called the film “a zany, all-out crowd-pleaser.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 21, 2025
College football has its fair share of zany traditions, but none has become as reliable as spending the final weekend of the season arguing over whether Alabama deserves to make the College Football Playoff.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 7, 2025
Running in the mornings and reading in the afternoons gave him just enough stability to endure the zany nights at the McNabs’.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
