Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One, especially a performer, who works in vaudeville.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US a person who performs in vaudeville

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a performer who works in vaudeville

Etymologies

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Examples

  • If I use the phrase vaudevillian for Bill Clinton, by contrast you think that President Bush has a front row seat to watch rather than to perform.

    CNN Transcript Aug 4, 2001 2001

  • In his more relaxed moments, Bernard's speech fell into a kind of vaudevillian patois.

    'The Great Oom' 2010

  • Rebecca Mead, writing in the New Yorker, dubbed him "the Marx Brother" and described his approach thus: "His favoured form of argument is paradox, and his favoured mode of delivery is a kind of vaudevillian overstatement, buttressed by the appearance of utter conviction."

    Slavoj Žižek: interview 2010

  • And Jody Rosen argues that Borat is a throwback to the crudest kind of vaudevillian ethnic burlesque, the stuff that we thought was smoothed out of pop culture long ago.

    GreenCine Daily: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. 2006

  • With this "vaudevillian" song the band wanted to assert that "this wouldn't be a paint-by-numbers Hold Steady record," says Mr. Kubler.

    Holding On 2008

  • Yorker, dubbed him "the Marx Brother" and described his approach thus: "His favoured form of argument is paradox, and his favoured mode of delivery is a kind of vaudevillian overstatement, buttressed by the appearance of utter conviction."

    The Guardian World News 2010

  • Jody Rosen argues that "Borat is a throwback to the crudest kind of vaudevillian ethnic burlesque, the stuff that we thought was smoothed out of pop culture long ago.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Theatre Alley, tucked inside the Financial District, still bears a vaudevillian wall painting from "Billy Bathgate," which filmed there in 1991.

    Our Typecast Metropolis Nick Carr 2011

  • Miss Hope Springs, a 6ft 2in "ex-Las Vegas showgirl", is the retro-glam, vaudevillian alter ego created by the pianist Ty Jeffries in order to sing his own compositions in theatres and clubs around the country.

    'Dad was too much to compete with' 2012

  • Interview magazine says “these vaudevillian vamps are putting the show back in showmanship.”

    THE DITTY BOPS « in other words [a portland feminist and queer bookstore and blog] 2009

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