Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Words or actions intended to evoke contemptuous laughter at or feelings toward a person or thing: "I know that ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon” ( Dorothy Parker).
- v. To expose to ridicule; make fun of.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Ridiculous.
- n. Mocking or jesting words intended to excite laughter, with more or less contempt, at the expense of the person or thing of whom they are spoken or written; also, action or gesture designed to produce the same effect.
- n. An object of mockery or contemptuous jesting.
- n. Ridiculousness.
- n. Synonyms Derision, mockery, gibe, jeer, sneer. See satire, ludicrous, and banter, verb
- To treat with ridicule; treat with contemptuous merriment; represent as deserving of contemptuous mirth; mock; make sport or game of; deride.
- Synonyms Deride, Mock, etc. (see taunt), jeer at, scoff at, scout; rally, make fun of, lampoon. See the noun.
- To bring ridicule upon a person or thing; make some one or something ridiculous; cause contemptuous laughter.
- n. A corruption of reticule, formerly common.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive to criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of
- n. derision; mocking or humiliating words or behaviour
- adj. obsolete ridiculous
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An object of sport or laughter; a laughingstock; a laughing matter.
- n. Remarks concerning a subject or a person designed to excite laughter with a degree of contempt; wit of that species which provokes contemptuous laughter; disparagement by making a person an object of laughter; banter; -- a term lighter than
derision . - n. obsolete Quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness.
- v. To laugh at mockingly or disparagingly; to awaken ridicule toward or respecting.
- adj. obsolete Ridiculous.
WordNet 3.0
- n. language or behavior intended to mock or humiliate
- n. the act of deriding or treating with contempt
- v. subject to laughter or ridicule
Etymologies
- From Latin ridiculus ("laughable, comical, amusing, absurd, ridiculous"), from ridere ("to laugh"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from Latin rīdiculum, joke, from neuter of rīdiculus, laughable; see ridiculous. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And all the ridicule is a stick for human spaceflight opponents to bash NASA over the head with.”
“Angered by this, Mr Rushdie then decided to turn to what he described as "ridicule by the Twitterverse" about the row.”
“To ignor the questions and concerns and resort to making fun of and ridicule is question for even more concern over the tactics of the current administration.”
“I've consistently maintained Roethlisberger has averted consistent public attention and ridicule from the mainstream media because of his race and the current media structure.”
“Audi seemed to be trying to make fun of Green Correctness and in the public arena ridicule is nearly always more effective than criticism.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Support The Intrusive State. Buy an Audi
“The kids in cases like the one being discussed here are of course much older and more cynical than we juniors were, but as Ricardo points out, they are also at a stage where peer ridicule is more potent than at any other time in their lives.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Could Students Be Suspended for “Beat the Jew” Game
“The morons who elected Sanford (and anyone else connected with C-Street) deserve all that they get by way of ridicule from the rest of the civilized world.”
“He played by the rules, was the subject of jokes and ridicule from the Clinton camp, had to endure Bill Clinton's rants day after day.”
“Rudy Giuliani ran similarly early in Iowa, to much ridicule from the press.”
“Okay, for one, ridicule is the consequence when after years of outrageous claims, the UFO community has produced no hard evidence.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ridicule’.
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 318 more...
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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7thGradeWords
horde, doggedly, retina, frail, jovial, insidious, injudicious, brazen, tentative, hortle, adaver, benign and 91 more...
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Words in which "u" is pronounced "yu"
cute, uniform, puny, municipal, butte, fume, perfume, puke, cucumber, huge, demure, cube and 95 more...
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Culture Jamming
appropriate, subvertise, adbust, detournement, carnivalesque, remix, mashup, critical, protest, subvertisement, adbusting, disrupt and 47 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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monica's list
just words i think are pretty.
luminous, iridescent, crestfallen, wanderlust, autumn, autumnal, spark, candescence, exaltations, merry, empathy, tainted and 96 more...
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soph2's Words
serendipity, audacity, groak, petrichor, lethologica, loganamnosis, agnuopia, dysania, dysphagia, neologism, incredulity, harbinger and 246 more...
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Words with Method to their Madness
Patterned words! Any word that alternates vowels and consonants with no consonants next to each other, and no vowels next to each other. (And a letter limit of no less than 5)
eleven, every, vowel, lemon, alibi, hopes, limit, cures, caravan, emirate, united arab emirates, honorificabilitud... and 114 more...
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thegirlnextfloor's list
autumnal, avalanche, silhouette, antique, abysmal, scorch, sonic, surge, symmetry, whisper, penchant, dissipate and 349 more...
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barfi
turpentine, cognate, connotation, denotation, bias, unflinching, emptive, mob, amnesty, modestly, spear, incline and 150 more...
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"Words, words, words."
abase, abject, abstruse, adjutant, altercation, altruistic, angst, anodyne, anomie, ape, apprehensive, aquiline and 310 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1696 more...
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words prep
Difficult to understand,
clever
artful,
insidious.subtle, incredulous, credulous, gullible, disdainful, ostentatious, boastful, extol, inculcate, nonplussed, obfuscate, abject and 52 more...
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fred's string
this list is a list.
shingle, inflatable, throbbing, bludge, tendon, weiner, gutter, bong, glacier, kite, giggle, sibling and 52 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ridicule.
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