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COMIC
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Irregular inflected form: comics
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A professional performer who tells jokes and performs comical acts
Synonyms:
comedian; comic
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("comic" is a kind of...):
performer; performing artist (an entertainer who performs a dramatic or musical work for an audience)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "comic"):
buffoon; clown; goof; goofball; merry andrew (a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior)
comedienne (a female comedian)
gagman; standup comedian (a comedian who uses gags)
joker; jokester (a person who enjoys telling or playing jokes)
top banana (the leading comedian in a burlesque show)
Instance hyponyms:
Dudley Moore; Dudley Stuart John Moore; Moore (English actor and comedian who appeared on television and in films (born in 1935))
Herbert Marx; Marx; Zeppo (United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1901-1979))
Arthur Marx; Harpo; Marx (United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1893-1964))
Chico; Leonard Marx; Marx (United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1891-1961))
Groucho; Julius Marx; Marx (United States comedian; one of four brothers who made motion pictures together (1890-1977))
Martin; Steve Martin (United States actor and comedian (born in 1945))
Arthur Stanley Jefferson Laurel; Laurel; Stan Laurel (United States slapstick comedian (born in England) who played the scatterbrained and often tearful member of the Laurel and Hardy duo who made many films (1890-1965))
Harry Lauder; Lauder; Sir Harry MacLennan Lauder (Scottish ballad singer and music hall comedian (1870-1950))
Buster Keaton; Joseph Francis Keaton; Keaton (United States comedian and actor in silent films noted for his acrobatic skills and deadpan face (1895-1966))
Bob Hope; Hope; Leslie Townes Hope (United States comedian (born in England) who appeared in films with Bing Crosby (1903-2003))
Alfred Hawthorne; Benny Hill; Hill (risque English comedian (1925-1992))
Hardy; Oliver Hardy (United States slapstick comedian who played the pompous and overbearing member of the Laurel and Hardy duo who made many films (1892-1957))
Fields; W. C. Fields; William Claude Dukenfield (United States comedian and film actor (1880-1946))
Durante; Jimmy Durante (United States comedian remembered for his large nose and hoarse voice (1893-1980))
Chaplin; Charlie Chaplin; Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (English comedian and film maker; portrayed a downtrodden little man in baggy pants and bowler hat (1889-1977))
Caesar; Sid Caesar; Sidney Caesar (United States comedian who pioneered comedy television shows (born 1922))
Burns; George Burns; Nathan Birnbaum (United States comedian and film actor (1896-1996))
Benjamin Kubelsky; Benny; Jack Benny (United States comedian known for his timeing and delivery and self-effacing humor (1894-1974))
Derivation:
comic (arousing or provoking laughter)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Arousing or provoking laughter
Example:
risible courtroom antics
Synonyms:
amusing; comic; comical; funny; laughable; mirthful; risible
Classified under:
Similar:
humorous; humourous (full of or characterized by humor)
Derivation:
comedy (a comic incident or series of incidents)
comic (a professional performer who tells jokes and performs comical acts)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Of or relating to or characteristic of comedy
Example:
comic hero
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Domain category:
drama (the literary genre of works intended for the theater)
Pertainym:
comedy (light and humorous drama with a happy ending)
Derivation:
comedy (light and humorous drama with a happy ending)
Context examples:
The comic weeklies returned his jokes and humorous verse, and the light society verse he wrote for the large magazines found no abiding-place.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I take any part you chuse to give me, so as it be comic.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
And having pulled the boy's hair by way of a caress, Mr. Laurence walked on, while Laurie went through a series of comic evolutions behind their backs, which nearly produced an explosion of laughter from Jo.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Poor Traddles—I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes—was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the narrative.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A joke had brought in fifty cents, and a second one, sold to a high-grade comic weekly, had fetched a dollar.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
“It falls as naturally, as necessarily to her,” said he, “as Agatha does to one or other of my sisters. It can be no sacrifice on their side, for it is highly comic.”
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for I was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on anything.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Just to show you, I wrote half a dozen jokes last night for the comic weeklies; and just as I was going to bed, the thought struck me to try my hand at a triolet—a humorous one; and inside an hour I had written four.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
On the tragic side were the Miss Bertrams, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates; on the comic, Tom Bertram, not quite alone, because it was evident that Mary Crawford's wishes, though politely kept back, inclined the same way: but his determinateness and his power seemed to make allies unnecessary; and, independent of this great irreconcilable difference, they wanted a piece containing very few characters in the whole, but every character first-rate, and three principal women.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
The comic verse-writers and the cartoonists took hold of it with screaming laughter, and in the personal columns of society weeklies jokes were perpetrated on it to the effect that Charley Frensham told Archie Jennings, in confidence, that five lines of Ephemera would drive a man to beat a cripple, and that ten lines would send him to the bottom of the river.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
