zany
Americanadjective
-
zanier,
comparative
-
zaniest
superlative
noun
-
zanies
plural
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
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
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
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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.
See Examples For:
Even if you don’t get all these visual references, it’s easy to still laugh at the Minions’ zany antics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
In our current everyone-with-a-phone-is-a-critic culture, this may sound like a particular flavor of zany.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
Spoofs like best musical nominee “Titanique,” a zany burlesque of James Cameron’s “Titanic” and all things Celine Dion, found new respectability on Broadway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
The very next morning, the BBC called to say they were blown away by the song's zany energy and its Euro-friendly lyrics about ditching an office job to take a mini-break in Germany.
From BBC ● May 14, 2026
Plus, Charles’s mother did not particularly care for what Mr. Lemoncello was doing inside his zany library.
From "Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics" by Chris Grabenstein
Hoping to sink the father’s chances, Al saddles LeBron with the beloved zanies Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester et al.
From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2021
Missing were the usual cast of zanies dressed in wedding gowns and super hero costumes jostling with the beat writers to get their questions heard.
From Reuters ● Jan. 27, 2020
Staged with crafty aplomb by Allison Narver, and animated by a well-oiled cast of prized zanies, the show beckons us in with a ballet of mobile doors.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2017
But, hunting among the zeds, I decided to write about "zanies" in the sense of clowns, fools and comics.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 5, 2012
It was conspicuous, it was cheap, it pointed us out to laughter—we, who were old soldiers, used to arms, and some of us showing noble scars,—like a set of lugubrious zanies at a fair.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Hoppers” features zanier cartoon comedy and less tear-inducing pathos than audiences may expect from the studio behind “Up.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 7, 2026
The last time Salon cracked wise at the offerings listed among Oprah’s Favorite Things or the zanier items in Goop’s holiday gift guide was in 2019.
From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2023
The story grows zanier and more evocative when Ry Shelley befriends a high-functioning madman named Professor Victor Stein, who’s into artificial intelligence and cryogenics.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 14, 2019
The storefront colors were zanier, the clothes tighter, the music louder.
From New York Times ● Dec. 13, 2016
The best material is darker, zanier and lands in unexpected places.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2016
I’d also be lying if I said that was the only reason my husband and I share our lives with two of nature’s zaniest comics instead of a herd of small humans.
From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2024
Even the zaniest comedy needs to take its premise seriously in order to work.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2023
“It could win best picture and it’s the zaniest idea out there,” Lord says.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 21, 2023
Imagine you’re a kid again and given an unlimited budget to build and race the zaniest Hot Wheels track you could possibly imagine.
From The Verge ● Dec. 27, 2021
Sunday, in a 37-31 victory over the Eagles, Flores unveiled perhaps the coolest, zaniest play of the season.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2019
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.
