Definitions

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

  • noun A professional entertainer who tells jokes or performs various other comic acts.
  • noun An actor in comedy.
  • noun A writer of comedy.
  • noun A person who amuses or tries to be amusing; a clown.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who acts or plays parts in a comic drama, whether male or female.
  • noun An actor or player generally.
  • noun A writer of comedy; a comic dramatist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An actor or player in comedy.
  • noun A writer of comedy.

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

  • noun An entertainer who performs in a humorous manner, especially by telling jokes.
  • noun by extension Any person who is characteristically humorous or amusing.
  • noun A writer of comedy.

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

  • noun an actor in a comedy
  • noun a professional performer who tells jokes and performs comical acts

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French comédien, player, comedian, from comédie, comedy, from Medieval Latin cōmēdia; see comedy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek κωμῳδία (kōmōidia, "comedy").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word comedian.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.