Buffoon vs Buffoonery - What's the difference?
buffoon | buffoonery |
One who acts in a silly or ridiculous fashion; a clown or fool.
* Melmoth
(pejorative) An unintentionally ridiculous person.
To behave like a
* {{quote-news, 1988, January 22, Henry Sheehan, Little Boy Blue, Chicago Reader
, passage=His mimicry of gay speech and facial expressions is analagous to an Amos 'n' Andy routine, in which white men buffooned their way through incredibly demeaning impersonations of black men.}}
foolishness, silliness; the behaviour expected of a buffoon.
* 1693 : William Congreve, The Old Bachelor
* 1814 : Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
* before 1891 : P.T. Barnum, quoted in The Life of Phineas T. Barnum [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1576]
As nouns the difference between buffoon and buffoonery
is that buffoon is one who acts in a silly or ridiculous fashion; a clown or fool while buffoonery is foolishness, silliness; the behaviour expected of a buffoon.As a verb buffoon
is to behave like a.buffoon
English
Noun
(en noun)- To divert the audience with buffoon postures and antic dances.
Usage notes
* In the United States the term is used most commonly to describe inappropriate, clownish figures on the public stage; here the behavior of a variety of public figures have caused them to be described as buffoons by their political opponents. * In the UK the term is used more broadly, to describe such people who are held in popular regard but who nevertheless engender amusement with their pronouncements and acts.Derived terms
* buffooneryVerb
(en verb)citation
buffoonery
English
Noun
(buffooneries)- Araminta, come, I'll talk seriously to you now; could you but see with my eyes the buffoonery of one scene of address, a lover, set out with all his equipage and appurtenances; ...
- One could not expect anybody to take such a part. Nothing but buffoonery from beginning to end.
- The Temperance Reform was too serious a matter for trifling jokes and buffooneries .