clown – English noun declension

English noun forms of clown

Noun: clown
Singularclown
Pluralclowns

Sample Sentences

  • Apart from the many instances in which Stalin himself held the top position-as philosopher, theoretician, statesman, strategist, economist, etc.--it was known, for example, who was the greatest painter, biologist, or circus clown. [1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume III: The Breakdown, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozkład (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 148:]
  • Over there in Norway, the churches all burn down / Let's go dress in goth clothes and get painted like a clown [2008, Lich King, “Black Metal Sucks”, in Toxic Zombie Onslaught:]
  • He was regarded as the clown of the school, always playing pranks.
  • "The dealers snatched at the state of intellectual exhaustion and scepticism of all values that followed the first world war to abolish values and substitute for them an arbitrary mumbo-jumbo of occultism and pseudo-Freudianism, which they tagged on to the works of studio clowns like Picasso and Modigliani and the like." [1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 81:]
  • Doc Bruce Banner, belted by gamma rays,
  • Turns into the Hulk – Ain’t he unglamour-rays! [unglamorous]
  • Wreckin’ the town with the power of a bull,
  • Ain’t no monster, clown. Who is as lovable
  • As ever-lovin’ Hulk? - Hulk! Hulk! [1966, “The Incredible Hulk (theme song)”, Jacques Urbont (lyrics) (The Marvel Super Heroes (television series)):]
  • Everything’s on the table, the specs are there in the RFP and can’t be changed by some clown in the Air Force who happens to come up with a new idea. [2013, Kim Stanley Robinson, The Gold Coast: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych; 2), Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, page 122:]
  • 'Breaking my sister's heart then getting pissed with his mates in the very next pub while she's sobbing alone?' I dragged this clown away from the fruitie and back to Amy next door, running my mouth off at him as we went. [2017, Arron Crascall, See Ya Later: The World According to Arron Crascall:]
  • This loutish clown is such that you never saw so ill - favoured a vizar (The New Arcadia) [a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC:]
  • […] three things ought always to be kept under: a mastiff dog, a stone horse and a clown; and really I think a snarling, cross-grained clown to be the most unlucky beast of three. [1700, Timothy Nourse, Campania Foelix, pages 15–16:]
  • The clown, the child of nature, without guile. [1782–1785, William Cowper, “(please specify the page)”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC:]
  • He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings. The clowns soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; […] [August 25, 1759, Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 71]
  • While the tomato clownfish Amphiprion frenatus has been spawned in captivity, wild-caught tomato clowns are more often seen for sale. [2006, Tropical Fish Hobbyist, volume 54, numbers 5-8, page 32:]

Etymology

1. From earlier clowne, cloyne (“man of rustic or coarse manners, boor, peasant”); likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Icelandic klunni (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Swedish kluns (“clumsy fellow”), all from Middle Low German klunz, from klunt (“pile, lump, something thick”); according to Pokorny, this could be related to a group of Germanic derivatives of Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up; amass”), such as Proto-West Germanic *klott (“lump”), Proto-Germanic *klūtaz (“clod, lump”), *kultaz (“lump, bundle”), etc.
2. Alternatively, directly from Low German (compare North Frisian klönne (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kluns (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kloen (“uncouth person, lout”)), themselves from the same ultimate source as above.
3. Unlikely from Latin colōnus (“colonist, farmer”), although learned awareness of this term may have influenced semantic development. See: Icelandic Nouns 'klunni', Swedish Nouns 'kluns', Dutch Nouns 'kluns'.

Verbs referencing "clown"

Dutch Nouns clown, French Nouns clown, Swedish Nouns clown, German Nouns Clown, Czech Nouns klaun, Slovak Nouns klaun, Finnish Nouns klovni, Danish Nouns klovn, Norwegian Bokmål Nouns klovn, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns klovn, Russian Nouns клоун, Ukrainian Nouns клоун, Latvian Nouns klauns, Romanian Nouns clovn.