What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Clownish vs Savage - What's the difference?

clownish | savage | Related terms |

Clownish is a related term of savage.


As an adjective clownish

is pertaining to peasants; rustic.

As a proper noun savage is

.

clownish

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Pertaining to peasants; rustic.
  • Uncultured, boorish; rough, coarse.
  • *1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.1:
  • *:Large were his limbes, and terrible his looke, / And in his clownish hand a sharp bore speare he shooke.
  • *1815 , (Jane Austen), Emma , :
  • *:"He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very clownish , so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility."
  • Like a circus clown; comical, ridiculous.
  • * 2014 , Jacob Steinberg, " Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals", The Guardian , 9 March 2014:
    • Once again, City's defending was clownish . James McArthur drove into the area on the left and pulled a low cross towards the far post, where the horribly timid Gaël Clichy allowed Perch to bundle the ball past Costel Pantilimon.
  • *2005 , (Laura Barton), The Guardian , 14 May 2005:
  • *:Indeed, when in close quarters to Rooney, it must prove almost irresistible to stick a plastic moustache and silly clownish shoes on the potato-headed fool.

    • savage

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • wild; not cultivated
    • a savage wilderness
  • * Dryden
    • savage berries of the wood
  • barbaric; not civilized
    • savage manners
  • * 1719-
    • I observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a circle dug in the earth, like a cockpit, where I supposed the savage wretches had sat down to their human feastings upon the bodies of their fellow-creatures.
  • * E. D. Griffin
    • What nation, since the commencement of the Christian era, ever rose from savage to civilized without Christianity?
  • fierce and ferocious
    • savage beasts
    a savage spirit
  • brutal, vicious or merciless
    • He gave the dog a savage kick.
    The woman was killed in a savage manner.
  • (UK, slang) unpleasant or unfair
    • - I'll see you in detention.
    - Ah, savage !

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (pejorative) An uncivilized or feral human; a barbarian.
  • * 1847 , , Tancred: or The New Crusade , page 251
    • 'Well, my lord, I don't know,' said Freeman with a sort of jolly sneer; 'we have been dining with the savages'.'
    'They are not '     savages     , Freeman.'
    'Well, my lord, they have not much more clothes, anyhow; and as for knives and forks, there is not such a thing known.'
  • (figuratively) A defiant person.

    • Verb

    (transitive)
  • To attack or assault someone or something ferociously or without restraint.
  • (figuratively) To criticise vehemently.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
    • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}
  • (of an animal) To attack with the teeth.
  • (obsolete) To make savage.
  • * South
    • Its bloodhounds, savaged by a cross of wolf.

    Anagrams

    *