ridicule

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French ridicule, from Latin ridiculus (“laughable, comical, amusing, absurd, ridiculous”), from ridere (“to laugh”).

Pronunciation
  • Audio (US)(file)

Verb

ridicule (third-person singular simple present ridicules, present participle ridiculing, simple past and past participle ridiculed)

  1. (transitive) to criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of
    His older sibling constantly ridiculed him with sarcastic remarks.

Synonyms

Translations

Noun

ridicule (countable and uncountable, plural ridicules)

  1. derision; mocking or humiliating words or behaviour
    • Alexander Pope
      Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, / Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone.
  2. An object of sport or laughter; a laughing stock.
    • Buckle
      [Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries.
    • Foxe
      To the people […] but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule.
  3. The quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness.
    • Addison
      to see the ridicule of this practice

Synonyms

Translations

See also

Adjective

ridicule (comparative more ridicule, superlative most ridicule)

  1. (obsolete) ridiculous
    This action […] became so ridicule. — Aubrey.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for ridicule in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Further reading

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ridiculus.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ʁi.di.kyl/
  • Audio(file)

Adjective

ridicule (plural ridicules)

  1. ridiculous (all meanings)

Further reading

Latin

Etymology

From rīdiculus (“laughable; ridiculous”), from rīdeō (“to laugh; mock”).

Adverb

rīdiculē (comparative rīdiculius, superlative rīdiculissimē)

  1. laughably, amusingly
  2. absurdly, ridiculously

Synonyms

References
  • ridicule in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • ridicule in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • ridicule in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
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